Grow Up or Go Home
by Hejin57
Summary: While cleaning the basement of the Mystery Shack, Dipper and Mabel discover an old overhead projector that turns them into teenagers! Enthused by their new forms, they devise a plan to avoid their uncle for rest of the summer, stay teenagers, and never look back. Now Dipper's chance has arrived, and maybe with Mabel's help, he might just finally be able to get Wendy's attention.
1. Part 1

**Looks like I've written a new story.**

**In case I haven't said so already, I'm a huge fan of Gravity Falls. Seriously, it's like one of the best shows Disney has ever created. And you know, I've drawn a lot of art for it, but man, I've been itching to write a story like this.**

**So now you get to read my own little "stand-alone" special of a story. I try very much to keep everyone and everything in character and in league with the actual show, so please, enjoy the ride!  
**

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**_~Hejin57~_**

**GROW UP OR GO HOME **

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"Alright, that's it! I'm officially finished! The lot of you, go do something mildly useful and clean the basement! Go before you start agitating my ulcers!" the old and miserly owner of the Mystery Shack, Stanford Pines, barked to his niece, nephew and sole teenage worker.

Yes, it was seemingly just another day in Gravity Falls. And as expected, Dipper, Mabel and Wendy could only really comply with the old man's orders.

Dipper just looked back at Grunkle Stan and sighed loudly. He didn't have to say a word to Wendy, but his sister was another story. Her incessant giggling as she traced the boring wood designs of the walls into animals was only halted when Dipper took her by the hand and dragged her along. She struggled like a worm in response, reaching for the markers on the counter that Dipper pulled her just out of reach of.

"Hey! I wasn't finished with those!" she complained, but Dipper just ignored her pleas and continued to drag her along. Wendy whistled to herself as they made the short journey through exhibit rooms, storage rooms, empty rooms, and finally down into the cavernous depths of the Mystery Shack basement.

The place seemed ancient, as if the last time it was cleaned was eons ago. The air was musty and filled with dust, and black marks of some unknown oily substance were scattered on the ceiling. As Dipper surveyed the area, Mabel's shrill voice pierced the air.

"Hey look! There's signatures of all the people who have cleaned this place. This last one says..."

"...Hirsch, 1989." her brother interjected, before pulling down his hat and putting on a serious face. "Well, there goes our chance of a free afternoon. I guess we better get to work then."

Wendy chuckled in response, popping open a can of soda pop and leaning against one of the old, dusty appliances. "Ah, lighten up. You really think your uncle's going to actually take the time to come down here and check on us?"

"Well, I mean, he might. Are you saying we're really just going to sit here and do nothing until this place cleans itself?" Dipper questioned, somehow in disbelief even though he knew Wendy wasn't much of a "worker."

"Awww, no, of course not, Dipper. We're not just gonna do nothing." Wendy replied, before taking a big gulp of soda and then sighing from the refreshing taste. "We're just not gonna do any actual work."

Dipper was clearly questioning her rational, but as his mind struggled to come up with something responsible to say, he remembered who he was talking to.

It was Wendy after all, and the last thing he'd want to be is Captain Buzzkill around her. Sure, she was dating Robbie and all, but it wouldn't hurt for him to at least be on her good side, so that when Robbie eventually dumped her horribly for some other girl, Dipper would be right there to console her and sweep her right into his arms.

So with those thoughts in mind, he put on a big smile before leaning up against the dusty appliance next to her.

"Alright. I guess this could work." he remarked.

"Ah, ah, ah. You shouldn't use the W word here. This is a work-free zone." she explained, before sipping her soda again.

Dipper's eyes moved towards the cold can in Wendy's hand. Suddenly, his mouth felt dry, and he couldn't help but croak out a question. "Uh, where did you get that soda from?

"Let there be light!" Mabel chirped as she flipped a switch on the wall. White light flooded up at Dipper, and him and Wendy backed away in an instant as the machine they had been leaning on suddenly lit up like a neon sign. There was a few seconds of awkward silence before Dipper looked back at Mabel, who just laughed as she approached the new shiny object in the room.

"Oh, don't tell me you guys got scared from that. I mean, seriously. Having octopus stuck in your braces is scary, but this...this is just..." Mabel attempted to finish, but she was at a loss of words. She inspected the machine with curious eyes, but even after two good minutes of looking, she was unable to recognize it.

"What is this thing?"

"I think it's an old overhead projector." Wendy said, putting her soda down on it as she rubbed her chin. "I remember having a teacher who used this all the time in elementary school. You put paper with writing on it and it blows up the writing so the whole class can see it."

"That's kind of cool, I guess...?" Dipper stated, trying to sound agreeable but not knowing if the situation was even right. That was, until Wendy started fiddling her hands over the screen. She smiled as the the shadow across the room began to change into a very unlikely shape.

"Personally, I always thought it was great for making shadow puppets." she said, her fingers becoming a shape that somehow created a fantastic shadow image on the wall. Mabel grinned, and Dipper rubbed his eyes as he looked on in disbelief at the shadow of a large dinosaur wielding an axe that was now moving on the wall.

"Wow! That's amazing!" Mabel exclaimed, as she watched Wendy make the dinosaur shadow on the walls close its jaws and wave its axe at the same time.

"How do you even make your fingers bend like that? And how does light even bend like that anyway?" Dipper wondered, trying to figure out the physics of how she could possibly make that shape on the wall. After all, he was pretty sure fingers didn't bend that way to make that complex of a shape. Well, they didn't bend that way naturally at least.

"Oh, my Dad showed me the trick a couple years ago. He called it the Lumberjack T-Rex. I mean...I guess it's kind of dorky looking back..."

Dipper waved his hands wildly, "Oh, no, no! It's cool, awesome, and great all at the same time! I was just thinking how impressive it is that you can do that. It doesn't look easy."

Wendy looked back at Dipper, and gave him a freckled smile that almost made the boy's heart melt. "Oh, thanks Dipper. Hey, if you want, I can try to show you how to do it."

Mabel's mouth opened in an instant. "Oh! Oh! Pick me! Pi-"

But Dipper was there to shut it one hand as he lightly pushed her aside. "It would be an honor to learn from you, Wendy."

But as Dipper got close to the old projector, ready to accept Wendy's teachings, a slightly annoyed Mabel couldn't help but look back at him with mischievous eyes. She laughed under her breath as she gave him a playful push towards Wendy.

But unfortunately for Mabel, she failed to gauge just how hard she had pushed him, and before Dipper knew it, he had fallen right onto the projector screen, knocking over what was left of Wendy's soda.

There was the sound of crackling electricity as the projector began to rumble, and suddenly both Wendy and Mabel were backing away from the machine Dipper was partially on. Then a crimson light exploded out from the old overhead projector, engulfing Dipper entirely in its otherworldly glow.

The boy tried to yell out, to say anything, but his voice would not comply. Instead, he could see the world stretching before his eyes, and his limbs felt strange, as if someone had put them in a taffy puller. There was no pain though, but a rolling sensation that finally stopped after a few more seconds. With a light crimson glow still behind him, Dipper finally came down on his feet, though the ground was much farther from him than he remembered.

His head was pounding, and as he reached for his own forehead, he caught sight of a yellow sleeve where he would have normally seen skin on his arm. Dipper looked ahead, seeing a stunned expression on both Wendy and Mabel's faces. He took a step, but it felt strange to walk, as if his depth perception had been twisted. Then he looked down on himself, and could clearly see that the body below him was no longer his own.

His shoes were longer, his shorts had become dark gray pants, and his vest had somehow transformed into a yellow long sleeve shirt with a single black question mark design on its front. Dipper's limbs were lanky and long, and any sign of the small prepubescent body he once had was gone. In a panic, Dipper touched his head, and to his relief, he could still feel his hat on his head, though as he ran his fingers through his hair, he noticed it was a bit longer than he remembered.

"Did...did this just happen? I mean, this happened, right, guys? This really just happened right now?" he asked in clear confusion, receiving a nod from a still stunned Wendy in response as Mabel began to grin beside her.

"You're older! That's so cool! Think of what we can do with this! The things I can do now that I've got an older brother!" Mabel began, her mind drifting off into a fantasy of Dipper giving her piggy back rides all day long, buying her excessive amounts of ice cream, and fanning her with a gigantic feather on a hot summer day.

"Yeah. Think of all the things you can do with an _older_ brother, Mabel. Or should I say, _little sister_." Dipper replied in a sly voice, realizing instantly that now he had something big over his twin sister. The days of her being five minutes older and a quarter of inch taller were over.

Mabel blinked, realizing now what was going on. It didn't take long for her to realize what to do however, as she smiled wide and pushed the older Dipper aside.

"Yeah, maybe I was your little sister for like ten seconds!" she said ecstatically, before slapping her hand down on the still glowing crimson projector screen.

"Mabel, wait!" Dipper and Wendy seemed to say in unison, but their words fell upon deaf ears as the process that changed Dipper began to change Mabel. She made a stupid grin as her limbs began to elongate and her outfit transformed. The light flashed a few times as she underwent her teenage metamorphosis, before she finally stepped down onto the ground, no longer her former self.

"Yes, yes! Christmas has come early this year!" she said excitedly as she inspected her new self. Her hair came down past her waist now, much longer than she had ever let it grow, and her sweater was gone, replaced by a baby blue shirt with a rubber duckie design imprinted on a front. Mabel marveled at her new purple skirt, and with her tongue, she could feel straight, brace-less teeth in her mouth. She touched the rainbow star necklaces on her ears and squealed in delight.

"Well, this day has officially become weird. But I gotta say, this is pretty cool too." Wendy remarked towards the now older Dipper and Mabel.

"I don't know about you, Dipper, but this is officially the best thing to happen all summer!" Mabel exclaimed as she played with her new skirt, laughing and giggling at her new ensemble and her new form. Next to her, Dipper felt his face and marveled at his new lanky body.

"Yeah...maybe it is. First a copy machine that can copy people, now a projector that makes you older. Who knows what other magical machines Grunkle Stan has lying around..." Dipper replied, his voice trailing off towards the last part of his sentence.

"Oh yeah! I can't wait to show Grunkle Stan! He's gonna be so surprised! Just like the time I colored half of the cash register money red, so it could all be complimentary!" Mabel announced as she started for the door, only to be stopped by Wendy, who seemed to understand exactly what Dipper was thinking about Mabel's idea.

"Woah, woah, wait a second, Mabel. We can't just waltz around like this and not expect anyone to notice. And we especially can't show up in front of Grunkle Stan like this." he stated in a very serious tone of voice.

Of course, Mabel seemed saddened upon hearing Dipper's words. A moment later, Wendy couldn't help but ask a question of her own. "Wait a second, Dipper. How are you and Mabel planning on working around the shack if you can't let your uncle see you?"

Dipper scratched his head, searching for an answer and then finding one that didn't seem all that convincing.

"I guess we'll just have to avoid his field of vision...for the entire summer." he replied, with a nervous gulp.

"Good luck with that, but I doubt you'll be able to avoid everyone else." she pointed out, causing Dipper to start pacing as he realized that was indeed another problem for them.

"Yeah, you're right. How are we supposed to avoid everyone in Gravity Falls for the entire summer?" he contemplated, rubbing his chin as he started to think, only to be interrupted by his sister's still excited but now more mature voice.

"Hey! We could pretend to be our own older siblings! I've always wanted an older twin brother and sister..."

Wendy and Dipper shot a look of confusion at her, before Wendy began to chuckle. Dipper shook his head and sighed.

"Mabel, no one's going to believe that. I will bet you one dollar right now that no one in Gravity Falls is gullible enough to believe that we somehow have an older set of twin siblings. Do you know how crazy those odds are? I don't even know, but I can assure you they're crazy enough!" he explained with confidence.

Just then, Soos poked his head into the room right on cue, surprising them all.

"Hey guys, the boss told me to come down her and ma-...hey! What happened to the Pines Twins? You guys their stunt doubles or something? If you're filming a movie down here, I would totally be an extra." Soos asked, his voice practically flooding with gullibility.

Mabel grinned towards Soos and put out her hand . "We're the older twins. We're Dipper and Mabel's older twin brother and sister by three years!"

Soos smiled like an excited gerbil in response as he slapped her a high five. "Woah! That's like, totally unlikely, but also totally world record material at the same time! Are you guys named Mabel and Dipper too?"

Dipper almost felt like hitting himself in the forehead upon hearing that, but his sister's quick words beat him to it. "Oh, of course not! But since you're so familiar with our younger siblings, you can just call us Mabel and Dipper Plus!"

Soos nodded, completely convinced with Mabel's charade. "Alright! Well, when you see the younger Pines, tell them that I was told to tell them to finish cleaning up."

"The boss is busy sleeping, but he left me a note to inform your younger siblings of this. Normally I would stay and want to hear all about your lives and how cool it is to live with another set of twins, but unfortunately I am needed elsewhere."

And with that, Soos was gone.

There was a short moment of silence before Mabel turned towards Dipper and grinned. He grumbled before reaching into his pocket and being surprised at the fact that his single dollar in change had appeared in his new pants. Dropping the coins into her hand, Dipper shook his head.

"Alright. We'll go with your plan. From now on, it looks like we're Dipper and Mabel Plus. Now I'm just worried about how we're going to explain this to Mom and Dad when we get back..."

Mabel laughed in response. "Oh, stop worrying. We'll cross that sinking bridge when we get to it. For now, we need to give these new teenage bodies a test run!"

Wendy put a hand on both Dipper and Mabel's shoulders, smiling as an idea came to her head.

"Actually, you guys should just come and hang with me and my buds tonight. There's a party starting at Tambry's in an hour. You guys can avoid your uncle, and introduce everyone to "Mabel and Dipper Plus" at the same time. It's a foolproof plan." she told them both, before making a freckled grin that at least convinced Mabel in an instant, and then Dipper a few seconds later.

Dipper made a small smile, his mind suddenly relishing the idea of spending any time with older kids, but mostly Wendy. Of course, he realized they weren't really older kids to him anymore, and that thought alone just made him smile wider.

"Wait." he said, looking back at the projector still glowing crimson behind them. "What about cleaning this room, and what about the projector?"

Mabel answered his second question, switching off the light and canceling the projectors' unearthly glow entirely. Wendy simply answered his first question with one of her carefree smiles.

"Think of it this way, Dipper. Now that you're older, you and your sister can be just like me." she remarked, "Lesson one: when confronted with a choice between work and play, always choose play. After all, work bites."

The three teenagers laughed together at Wendy's joke, before deciding that they'd had enough of the room. They left the projector in the darkness, with Dipper shutting the door to the basement right behind him.

Mabel was right, Dipper thought. This was definitely the best thing that had happened all summer.

And now that he was not only the same age, but also slightly taller than Wendy, he had a good feeling this summer was just about to get a million times better...

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**A nice start I think. We can only wait to see what's in store for Dipper and Mabel Plus!**

**Stay tuned!**


	2. Part 2

**New chapter y'all! I'm really enjoying writing this, and this chapter feels particularly long and particularly good. Anyway, enough talking! Enjoy, read, and remember to review!  
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"I touched it! I touched it! I touched it!"

Mabel couldn't seem to stop repeating herself. Standing behind her brother and Wendy, she continued to poke at a high branch with her finger, enthralled at the simple fact that she was now indeed tall enough to do so. A few leaves fell to the ground as the poked the branch incessantly.

"I touched it! I touched it again! And there we go again! Hey, Dipper, did I mention that I to-"

Her voice was blotted out as a clearly agitated Dipper finally put a hand over her mouth. "Yes, Mabel! I understand you can reach that tree branch! Now, will you stop!?"

"Hey, it's no big, Dipper. Your sister's just having her fun. It's not like you guys get to be my age everyday." Wendy chimed, alerting Dipper's mind to a sudden and important thought. He nodded in response, putting an arm over Mabel's shoulder as he took his hand away from her mouth.

"Yeah, uh, right, Wendy. Mabel, can we speak in private for a moment?" he asked his sister, who simply smiled and snorted out a laugh.

"Sure! Is this going to be about that time you wet the bed last wee-" she began, but Dipper was quick to cover her mouth, and this time, he didn't let go. His expression was quite serious, while Mabel seemed to be puffing out her cheeks at she tried to muffle a laugh.

"No, Mabel, ugh, will you just listen to me for a second!" he replied, bringing her a few feet away from Wendy so that they were more than just out of earshot. Dipper sighed before letting go of her mouth again. This time, however, Mabel did not say a word.

"Mabel, look. I don't think you realize how happy I am about us turning into teenagers. I'll give you this much; you were right. This is the best thing to happen to us all summer. But while you're all excited about being able to touch tree branches that you couldn't before, I'm worrying about bigger things."

Mabel puffed her cheeks as she smiled. "Like?"

"This is my chance, Mabel. This is my one and only chance to finally get Wendy to like me! And not in the platonic, "well, he's just my kid friend who I hang around a lot, but he's too young for me" kind of way. I can get her to think I'm cool! I can show her how much I appreciate her! And maybe, just maybe, I can get her to be my...my..." Dipper went on, but he seemed unable to say the last word of the sentence.

"...girlfriend?" Mabel finished, her voice so knowing. Dipper nodded in response.

Mabel put a finger on her chin, realizing something both important and unfortunate for her brother. "But Dipper, isn't she technically Robbie's girlfriend? How are you going to get past him? Are you just going to steal her away from him? Hey! This is just like one of the old soap operas I caught Grunkle Stan watching the other day!"

Dipper grimaced, rubbing the back of his head as he wondered how to answer. "Well, I haven't really thought of a solution yet. But I have time, right? It's not like we're going back to being twelve any time soon, right?"

From a few feet away, Wendy clicked her phone closed, calling out to the two teenage twins.

"Hey guys! Thompson's going to be here in like five minutes!"

Dipper was quick to rush by her side, smiling awkwardly. "Oh, whoops, yeah, we're good to go."

"So what were you guys talking about?" Wendy asked innocently, causing Mabel to smile next to Dipper and instantly putting a nervous look on the boy's face.

"Oh, nothing. We were just discussing whether or not we're introducing ourselves as "Dipper and Mabel Plus", or "Mabel and Dipper Plus." he replied, his nervous laughter very clear. Wendy just raised an eyebrow, not at all convinced.

"Hey, you know, that's an important thing to talk about." he argued, but Wendy just gave him another one of her cute, freckled smiles.

"Hey man, if you're worried about how everyone's going to react to "meeting" you guys, chill out a bit. You know my friends by now. They liked you guys when you were younger, so they'll like you now for sure." she reassured him, which of course, did make Dipper feel better.

"Yeah, I guess you're right, Wendy." he replied, rubbing his arm and feeling somewhat stupid for even worrying in the first place.

"I guess maybe Robbie might be some trouble, but he's generally harmless. Boyfriends, huh? What can you do?" Wendy remarked, before her face perked up as she spotted a familiar car driving towards them. "Ah, there's Thompson."

As Thompson pulled up, Dipper's heart sank quite a bit, as the word boyfriend felt like an icy, cold spike that threatened to tear him apart from the inside. He tried to ignore the horrible feeling as he followed Wendy into Thomspon's car, his sister right on his tail.

Wendy was probably right. Her friends would probably be totally cool with "Dipper and Mabel Plus".

What could possibly go wrong?

The drive to Tambry's was relatively short, and though Thompson asked who was sitting in the back with Wendy, he was promptly told that a formal introduction would be done once they met up with everyone else.

When they finally arrived at Tambry's, there was a period of time when Dipper felt like he almost couldn't go through with the plan. Mabel pushed past him as Nate, Lee, Robbie and Tambry herself came to meet them outside, clearly excited to unveil herself to everyone. But it took Dipper more than five seconds before he could will himself to get up and leave the car, and it was really only after seeing another one of Wendy's reassuring smiles that he was actually able to do it.

"Alright, people." Wendy said as Mabel stepped out of the car, with Dipper following shortly after. "These two are the surprise I've brought for you all."

Robbie laughed in an instant. "Nice stilts, kiddies! Sorry to burst your bubbles, but that doesn't make you a teenager."

Dipper gave him a doubtful look, of course. "We're not on stilts. And we're not even who you think we are."

"We're Mabel and Dipper Plus! We're the older twin sister and brother of Mabel and Dipper that none of you have ever met!" Mabel chimed, and as Dipper expected, everyone did not look as completely convinced as Soos had been. Nate and Lee began laughing to each other as Tambry started to furiously text on her phone.

"Wait, wait. So you guys are their older siblings? Like, the upgraded set of twins?" Lee asked with a snicker, before Nate just punched in the arm and the two just went into a bout of laughter.

"In the flesh." Dipper said triumphantly, pulling up his pant leg right in front of Robbie to unveil that there was indeed human skin underneath. "You see any stilts under here?"

Robbie just frowned and crossed his arms, but not before Mabel put a hand on his back and smacked it hard.

"Hey, put a smile on that face! You're going to have tons more fun with us that you ever had with our baby brother and sister. You can absolutely trust me on that one!" she told him, her brace-less teeth practically shining in the light of the setting sun outsides. Of course, unknown to her, Robbie couldn't help but see a strange sense of familiarity in this supposed "Mabel Plus."

"So like, are we gonna continue wasting time out here playing show and tell, or are we gonna actually go inside and party?" Tambry added, causing Thompson to twiddle his fingers as he realized something important.

"Yeah, she's right, guys. I gotta be back before midnight, and my mom's gonna be mad if I break curfew." he began, hoping that his friends would understand him. Of course, he could see by the expressions of everyone around him that his efforts had been in vain. Hands went up in the air, and the chanting began.

_"PARTY ALL NIGHT! PARTY ALL NIGHT! PARTY ALL NIGHT!_

Dipper and Mabel joined in quickly, and soon they were following the parade of teenagers pumping their fists as they all made their way single file into Tambry's house. Somehow, Dipper had ended up behind Wendy, and just seeing her smile and hearing her voice made him thank the fates all the more for letting them discover that overhead projector in the basement.

Tambry's house wasn't all that big, but something told Dipper that it had probably adapted itself to teenage parties by now. Everyone seemed to sort of split up into doing their own thing the moment they made it inside. Tambry herself disappeared behind a counter, only to reappear with her phone replaced by a sleek laptop so she could constantly update her status all night long.

Nate, Lee and Thompson crashed onto the couch, scrambling to grab controllers as they turned on the video game console and began beating each other up in Fight Fighters. Their laughter seemed to drown out all other noise in Tambry's living room, at least until Robbie took it upon himself to head over to the stereo and insert his favorite album.

Dipper and Mabel could only smile awkwardly and debate over whether or not to cover their ears the whole time as the sound of the first track of "Robbie V: Don't Care About Naming A First Album" blasted throughout the room.

"Hey, uh, Robbie?" Dipper practically shouted as the music threatened to destroy his eardrums. "Can you turn that down just a little bit?"

"Yeah! At this rate, I'm going to still be hearing it when I'm twenty!" Mabel added, having finally reached the point where she simply had to cover her ears. Robbie just smirked at them both, turning up the volume slightly as if he was enjoying watching them suffer.

"Ah, sorry, dudes, but I've been meaning to share some of my bands' new material for awhile. I'm sure the more you listen, the more you'll enjoy it." he said through a rude laugh.

Suddenly, his music's volume lessened to a more reasonable level, when Wendy finally decided to take it upon herself to lower it and give everyone some of their hearing back. Both Dipper and Mabel sighed in relief.

"Just a little too loud for my taste, Robbie." she told him, and much to Dipper's annoyance, he put on one of his confident smiles and put an arm around Wendy's waist.

"Okay, okay, I guess I went a little overboard. You know, I've been working on a new song for you, and it would be totally awesome if you'd listen to it." he replied, a little uncertainty showing up in his tone of voice.

"You made a song? For me? You dork, you didn't have to!" Wendy told him as she punched his arm,, before giving him a peck on the lips.

Robbie and Wendy made their way to the other side of the living room, where his guitar lay propped against the wall. Dipper watched them the whole time with stern eyes, fantasies in his mind forming of him showing Robbie up or at least proving to Wendy how much of a jerk he really was.

"Well, you are my girlfriend, after all..."

Those last words bit at Dipper the most. In fact, he was focusing so intently that he managed to catch Nate and Lee's attention. His sister, on the other hand, had found entertainment of her own.

"So can you update it now? I touched a tree branch today! More than six times!" she told Tambry excitedly, having been looking over her shoulder for the past five minutes. Tambry surprisingly complied, and Mabel couldn't help but jump up and down as she continued to pelt Tambry odd requests of what to her update her status with.

"Oh! Oh! Say that we're hanging out and we're totally best friends! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it Do it!" she chanted, and though Tambry typed out Mabel's requests, she made a point to add the words "annoying", "insane" and "crazy", in no particular order.

Dipper, on the other hand, felt a punch on his arm, and which took him out of his staring fit as he realized both Nate and Lee were sitting right behind him.

"Hey, D-Plus, you know you've been gazerbeaming Wendy and Robbie this whole time, right?" Lee said, causing Nate to snicker in response.

"Yeah, you got a thing for her man?" Nate added, and Lee's eyes widened as he put a hand on Dipper's shoulder in an effort to congratulate him.

"If what my bro says is true, then I gotta say, you've got guts, D-Plus. Taking a girl away from her man, now that's called bravery right there. But from the looks of it, you could probably take Robbie in a fight if you had to. I hear he's all skin and bones."

"Your mom's all skin and bones." Nate chimed in, causing Lee to punch him hard in the arm. Of course, this only made them laugh at each other more. Thompson, on the other hand, seemed confused why anybody had stopped playing, but nevertheless was content with throwing fireballs at a defenseless Dr. Karate over and over again.

"Hey, hey, you guys got it all wrong. I just kn-...I mean, my little brother told me a lot about Wendy before we came to visit. She just seems really cool and all." Dipper tried to explain with confidence, but it seemed obvious that Nate and Lee didn't believe him for a second.

"You like her, don't you?" they said in unison, and Dipper knew the charade was over. He looked over his shoulder, then took off his hat and nodded.

"No worries man." Nate said reassuringly. "We won't say a word to her. Besides, she's only really dating Robbie because he's the first guy to ask her out in like a month."

Lee nodded with his tattoo-wearing friend. "She totally doesn't _really_ like him. He's just sort of there, you know?"

Dipper didn't seem immediately convinced. "You guys seem to know Wendy so well. But how do I know I can trust you?"

The two best friends smiled at each other, then looked right at Dipper with mischievous glints in their eyes.

"Trust us." Nate stated. "We'll prove it to you."

Suddenly, Lee put both hands up and shouted into the air, catching Dipper completely off guard. "Hey losers! Who wants to play some Truth or Dare?"

Dipper gulped the moment he heard those words, and his heart seemed to only beat faster in his chest as he watched everyone gather in a circle on the floor as Tambry pulled out an old soda bottle from the fridge in her kitchen. Mabel just had a stupid grin on her face, and Nate and Lee laughed to each other in a way that told Dipper they had something very evil planned for him. Nevertheless, Dipper kept his cool.

Nate put his hand over the bottle in an instant, explaining the rules as best as he could. "So I'm assuming we're all familiar with the game, right? You get picked by the bottle, you get to ask anyone Truth or Dare. Also, there's a house rule in effect this game. First person to touch the bottle gets to ask anyone they want the first Truth or Dare."

Thompson seemed obviously confused over this development, pointing out the most obvious fact. "But this isn't your house..."

Nate just grinned in his direction before pointing at Tambry beside him, who was typing into her laptop at the speed of light. "You really think she cares?"

He didn't need to say anymore. Spinning the bottle, Nate and Lee both watched it with eager eyes as they waited for it to land pointed towards Wendy.

Having practiced spinning it many times in the past, the two best friends had learned that there was a sort of method to getting it to land on someone specific. This time however, Nate's timing had been just so slightly off, and it managed to land on the person just to Wendy's right, which was Lee.

The blonde-haired teen's grin faded, and Nate's seemed to just grow in size. He snickered before delivering the verdict to his friend.

"Alright, Lee. Truth or Dare?"

"Totally dare. Give me your best shot." Lee replied, clearly ready for a challenge.

"I dare you to...eat this orange." he said, surprising Lee as he pulled out a seemingly normal orange from behind him. Lee raised an eyebrow and took it into his hand, and feeling it, he couldn't find anything strange about it. Looking around at everyone, Lee shrugged.

"Sure, fine." he said, before biting into it. There was a loud squelching sound, and suddenly Lee was spitting out blue globs of toothpaste. When he wiped his mouth away, he could feel something in his teeth, and he pulled out a long thread of dental floss.

Nate roared with laughter, and everybody, even Tambry, followed suit. "You doofus! I filled that with toothpaste and dental floss!"

Lee threw the orange right over Nate's head and it landed against the wall, splattering in a blue and teal display. "Ah, that's gross man! Pretty good, but still gross."

His fingers were over the bottle in an instant. Lee's eyes filled with that eagerness agin. "My turn!"

Lee turned out to be much more skillful with the bottle spinning than Nate was, and this time, it landed spot on Wendy. The two best friends looked at each other with knowing grins before Lee posed his question.

"Okay, Wendy. Truth...or Dare?"

Wendy seemed to actually think about it for a moment, before smiling and putting on a determined expression. "What the heck, I'll take a dare."

Lee hit the mark. Without sparing a word, he glanced at Dipper, and then right back at Wendy. "I dare you to kiss D-Plus over there."

Robbie was up and annoyed in an instant. "Hey man, that's not cool!"

Nate simply put a hand up to stop him. "It's her dare. She doesn't have to do it if doesn't want to. Or you know, if she's too scared."

All while this was going on, and Wendy was debating on what to do, Dipper seemed to be elsewhere. The words rang in his head like a gigantic bell, and now all he could think about was hearing Wendy refusing the dare to kiss him.

Part of him was okay with, partially because he had no idea what a kiss actually entailed, and what it would be like to get one from the girl he had a crush on as opposed to his mother.

The other part of him couldn't stand the thought of being refused by Wendy, because it would prove that Nate and Lee were wrong, and that he had no chance with her whatsoever, even with the advantage of this new teenage body.

But either way, Dipper still felt frozen in fear. He looked over at Mabel, who instead of offering any sign of understanding, simply grinned and gave him two thumbs up.

Finally, the eternal silence ended with Wendy's carefree words. "Yeah, alright. I'll do it."

Of course, Robbie seemed visibly annoyed at the whole situation, but Wendy put a hand on his shoulder to reassure him.

"Hey, trust me on this one." she said, before crawling over towards the still shocked Dipper. He felt his heart beat a million times a minute in his chest as Wendy's face got closer and closer to his. The fact that everyone around them was watching didn't really help much either, as even Tambry had stopped typing on her laptop to see this spectacle.

Dipper could feel Wendy's breath on his cheek. Then, like a quick shot, she kissed him on the right cheek, before pulling away and sitting right back next to Robbie. Her boyfriend was quick to put an arm around her as Dipper put a hand up to his cheek, trying to believe that all of this was really happening.

"See?" Wendy told Robbie, as Nate and Lee seemed quite disappointed by her interpretation of the dare. "I kissed him, but everything's still cool. You can stay chill, Robbie."

Dipper stood up, still in a partial daze. "Excuse me. I think I need to use the bathroom."

He made his way past Tambry and Thompson, and upon reaching the bathroom, he grinned at himself like an idiot.

When the grin didn't go away, he splashed water at his face and then pinched himself to make sure that this was indeed reality. Touching his cheek again, he marveled at just how wonderful Wendy's lips had felt there. Not knowing that he wasn't actually alone, Dipper let something out that he shouldn't have as he looked in the mirror.

"You know, when I was twelve, I probably would have fainted on the spot from that. Being older really does have its perks." he said out loud to his reflection, only to stiffen up as the door to the bathroom creaked slightly.

Standing in the doorway was none other than Robbie. And he had a very knowing smirk on his face.

"I knew it!" he announced, pointing at Dipper's chest with one finger in an almost threatening manner. "You're the same little Dipper that's been after my girlfriend this whole time!"

Dipper waved his hands in defense. "I think you're a little confused. I'm Dipper Plu-"

"Oh come off it! You think I'm actually stupid enough to believe that?" Robbie practically shouted. Caught in an awkward and difficult situation with nowhere to run and no one to back him up, Dipper's answer turned out to not be a particularly smart one.

"Uh...yes?"

Of course, this made Robbie very mad. Soon he had a fist raised, and Dipper was backed up into a corner. It seemed like Dipper was in for a world of hurt when the teenager felt something strange happening to his left arm. The hairs on it stood up, and it began to prickle. Then, it felt like a jolt of electricity was charging through it, to the point where it almost hurt.

Figuring out an escape to this bad situation, Dipper doubled over, feigning sickness.

"Ah, my stomach!" he said, checking his arm as he did so, and seeing that it had shrunk into his sleeve. Fear began to grip Dipper, as his experience with the weird and the bizarre in Gravity Falls let him realize exactly what was happening to him.

"I...I think I need to be going. I'm coming down with something." he said to Robbie, in the most fake weak tone of voice he could muster.

"What? Wait. I was just about to..." Robbie attempted to say, but Dipper pushed past him and left the bathroom in a hurry.

Stunned, and not really knowing how he should have reacted, Robbie simply paced around the bathroom. After a good minute, he decided to sit on the toilet, not realizing the seat was in fact up.

There was a loud splash as he sat down. Of course, his pants became drenched in toilet water, and Robbie proceeded to grunt in anger as he slammed his fist against the wall.

"Arrgh...stupid, stupid, stupid!"

Outside, Dipper was already dragging Mabel along, who had been fiddling with the braces that had reappeared on her teeth with her tongue. Dipper waved apologetically at the confused members of the party, save for Wendy, who with only a look figured out exactly what was happening with "Dipper and Mabel Plus".

"Sorry guys, but looks like we have to split! Some serious stuff just came up! It was fun though! We should do it again!"

And with that, Dipper and Mabel rushed out the door and were outside Tambry's front door. As Dipper reached for the cheap phone Grunkle Stan had given them when they first arrived in Gravity Falls, he quickly dialed for Soos. Their conversation was quick and to the point, mostly because Dipper's voice rapidly began changing by the end of it.

When Dipper clicked the phone closed, he was no longer the tall lanky boy he was only minutes before and Mabel was also short and back to her sweater and her teal skirt. They stood there together, pre-teens once again.

"Well...it was fun while it lasted?" Mabel said in an attempt to try cheering Dipper up. Dipper just sighed.

"I should of known the effects wouldn't be permanent." he stated. "It's just a good thing they didn't see us like this."

Mabel smiled and put an arm around her brother. "Hey! Look at the bright side. Now we're officially were-teens!"

Of course, Dipper couldn't help but smile at his sister's comment. It was silly, but it was also funny. As the two twins watched Soos pull up beside them, they could only wonder how long it would be till they could taste the teenage temptation again.

Not surprisingly, Mabel's need for the teenage fix didn't last very long. When Soos finally got them back to the shack, after Dipper skillfully explained that they'd been at Tambry's because their brother and sister had asked them to come, Mabel was quick to run out of sight.

Naturally, Dipper followed. When he found her, she was in the musty basement, standing next to the old overhead projector, which glowed with the same crimson light. Dipper looked behind him, somewhat afraid that Grunkle Stan would appear out of nowhere and find out everything. But when all they could hear throughout the shack was the sound of Stan's chainsaw snore, they both knew that the coast was clear.

"I was thinking we could try sleeping as teenagers. I want to have my first teenage dream!" Mabel said excitedly as Dipper went over the side of the projector opposite to his sister.

"Wait, what if you have a nightmare tonight?" Dipper asked. Mabel simply laughed in response.

"Well, that works too. For all I know, teenage nightmares are probably nowhere near as bad. But then again, they could also be a lot worse."

Dipper just gave her a small smile in response, before pulling his hat down just a bit. When he hovered his hand over the projector screen, his sister did exactly the same. They looked at each other with determined eyes, knowing exactly what the other was thinking for once.

"Well, were-teens again then, brother?"

Dipper narrowed his eyes, and moved his fingers excitedly. "Yup. Were-teens again."

The two twins put their hands down onto the projector screen at the same time, and the crackling electricity and red light engulfed them as they made contact.

Not surprisingly, they both could only smile knowingly to one another as the transformation took hold, and their short time as pre-teens was nothing more than a memory once again...

* * *

**The saga of the were-twins begins! Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and more will come soon! Stay tuned! :D**


	3. Part 3

**New chapter coming your way, people! Sorry for the minor wait! Just want to make sure it's good and long, plus I got distracted with the leaking of the most recent new episode, Bottomless Pit.**

**Anyway, read, review, and enjoy!**

* * *

Something about sleeping as a teenager was definitely different. There was a certain sensation, a certain special feeling of being a bigger person taking up more in space in bed.

To Dipper, he felt like he was somehow more powerful. There was a sense of superiority to being bigger in his bed, as if there was some negative force in life that he'd finally managed to show up after all this time.

For Mabel, it gave her the opportunity to roll around and giggle when she couldn't sleep. She knew she was just big enough that if she decided not to pay attention, she might actually fall out of the bed for once. Sometime early in the morning, as Dipper was just waking up and unaware of the changes that had occurred in his sleep, a loud thumping noise signified that Mabel had finally fallen off the bed.

Of course, she just giggled loudly as Dipper leaned over and looked at her with groggy eyes.

"Someone looks little." she teased, causing Dipper to look at himself and realize that he was indeed a prepubescent kid again. He sighed, before reaching underneath his pillow and pulling out the same ancient journal that he'd found in the forest way back when they first arrived in Gravity Falls.

"Well, I guess that proves one theory. The transformations only last for about eight hours." he informed his sister, jotting down notes in a blank part of the journal. A few pages ahead, Dipper glanced over some of his own entries, which were side by side with entries of the unknown author.

Apparently, mystical office appliances were commonplace in Gravity Falls, and for some odd reason, it seemed that these machines in particular were most susceptible to wayward magical energies. The photocopy machine that created a menagerie of Dipper clones was only the first example. Now a projector with the power to physically age someone in an instant could be added to the list.

"Only eight hours?" Mabel complained as she watched Dipper scribble into his notebook. "That's not fair."

An idea popped into her mind, and she grinned wide all of a sudden. "Maybe the longer we hold onto that weird light, the longer we stay teenagers! Oh! We should sleep on the projector! Then maybe we'll stay teenagers for like a week!"

"I dunno about that, Mabel. But I guess we could try..." Dipper remarked, reviewing his notes again and actually wondering if his sister's words had any credence. Of course, it wasn't long before she seemingly had had enough of being young, making her intentions to grow back up again clear as she skipped right out of her room.

"Well, I'm going back to being Mabel Plus! Have fun with your homework!" she exclaimed, leaving the room with all the energy of an excited frog.

A fearful expression appeared on Dipper's face just moments later. He reached out to stop her, but before he knew it, she was gone.

His words were quick and quite panicked. "Mabel, wait!"

Of course, Dipper wasn't dumb. He knew that even if he called out to his twin sister, the chances of her actually coming back and listening to him were quite low. So, instead of wasting any more of his breath, he set his journal aside and went after her.

When Dipper arrived downstairs, at the doorway of the basement, he was met by a taller, more mature Mabel. Clearly not in the mood to listen, she simply pushed past him with a cocky smile on her face. Nevertheless, despite being a little more than half her size, an agitated Dipper still grabbed her by the wrist before she could escape.

Of course, the bigger Mabel was much stronger, and Dipper could barely pull her anywhere. With all the might in his body, he attempted to pull her back into the room, but only made it about halfway towards the projector before she started really resisting.

"Oh please, Dipper. This is silly." she remarked, but her brother didn't seem to be listening. He had been stretching his free hand out the whole time, and his fingers just managed to scrape the surface of the projector. The bright crimson light blinded Mabel temporarily as her brother underwent the quick but awkward transformation back into a teenager.

A flash later, and suddenly Mabel couldn't resist so easily against his newfound strength.

"You can't just walk around the shack like nothing, Mabel!" Dipper explained, his stance more confident and a serious look in his eyes.

Mabel slapped his hand away anyway, pouting at him as she complained. "Oh, come on, Dipper! What's the point of being like this if we can't have any fun?! I just want to enjoy myself! It's not hurting anybody!"

"Ugh, Mabel! You just don't get it, do you? This is a huge risk we're taking, just transforming like this! We have to be careful about it! We have to be smart! But most importantly, we have to b-" Dipper attempted to finish, but he was stopped mid-sentence when a terrible noise rang through his ears.

It was something he completely dreaded the moment he heard it, and when he looked towards his sister, he knew that despite her supposed resistance, she still felt the exact same way.

"Kids? Kids!? You two better get your sorry butts down here, cause somebody's gonna be checking inventory today, and it's not gonna be me!"

Grunkle Stan's voice was the last thing Dipper had wanted to hear. He could only gulp as he he glanced back at Mabel, who seemed to understand the severity of the situation quite well.

"Um...so...what are we supposed to do now?" she asked quietly, but Dipper didn't seem to have an answer for her. Instead, he looked towards the door, fixed his hat, and put on the most relaxed yet confident expression he could muster.

"I guess...we go upstairs, and hope that Grunkle Stan's cataracts are particularly bad today."

Even Mabel could tell that Dipper was far from truly confident with that statement. But the twins also knew that they had no other choice in the matter, and with careful steps, they made their way upstairs.

Of course, once they got to the entrance way that led into the gift shop, Dipper and Mabel just ended up leaning back behind the door frame. For a few minutes, they both scouted diligently for their great uncle even though they knew they could be found out and ousted at any second. After scanning the area and spotting nothing but Wendy at the register, who was busy reading a magazine and looking disinterested as usual, Dipper could only assume the coast was clear.

And so, he and his sister tip-toed out past the doorway and into the gift shop. Of course, Dipper immediately saw Wendy's expression light up upon her noticing their presence.

He was quick to put a finger over his mouth before she could speak, knowing that if she even so much as said his name, it could very well doom them for the entire summer. Instead, Dipper watched as Wendy zipped her mouth shut in response to his signal, before going back to reading her magazine and pretending she had never seen them in the first place.

And low and behold, just as Mabel happened to make it behind the counter, Dipper found himself in an awkward position as Grunkle Stan finally entered the room, cleaning his glasses off as he surveyed the work of his employees.

"Well, well, well...look who finally decided to show up! Dipper, Mabel: I want you two to look over everything in this room, and make sure not a fake penny is out of place. If the IRS doesn't fall for the fake address, I want to at least make sure they can't accuse me of overcharging my customers. Also...I caught some kids trying to eat the candied apples while my back was turned, and I'd prefer that Soos not have to mop the floor a second time today." Grunkle Stan told the three, continuing to clean his glasses and remaining relatively composed as the twins were almost shaking in suspense.

Luckily for Dipper and Mabel, his vision was blurred enough so that he only vaguely saw the colors of Dipper's form and what looked like Wendy lounging about. At the corner of his eye, Stan could see Mabel's head just slightly visible behind the counter.

When he finally put his glasses back on, Grunkle Stan chuckled and produced a large plunger from behind him. It still looked wet. "Ah, kids. They just don't know how useful a good plunger can be."

"That's great, Grunkle Stan. Just great." Dipper said in his most enthusiastic voice, though his great uncle seemed to notice quickly that he was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey! What gives? You're supposed to be over there counting my inventory!" he practically yelled in his gravely voice, realizing that Dipper was behind him. Of course, when Grunkle Stan turned to try and find his nephew, Dipper side-stepped so that he remained right behind Stan and completely out of his field of vision.

"Oh, what? Oh, of course! I just...I just need to check something. I think you've got something on your back, Grunkle Stan." Dipper told him, which, as he had expected, threw his uncle into an immediate state of panic.

"What?! What is it? Is it some bug? Oh, please tell me it's not a tick!"

"Uh...oh no! it's crawled right into your suit!" Dipper relayed to his uncle in a fake concerned voice, trying to stay behind the now flailing man as Mabel and Wendy snickered at the spectacle behind the counter.

Those words seemed to be the last straw for Stan, and without thinking, he pushed the teenage Dipper aside and was running for the bathroom like a maniac.

Dipper simply listened to the sound of his uncle's scrambling, and could only wonder how such a stupid, sudden plan had possible worked. His sister simply giggled behind the counter, somehow enjoying the fact that everyone could only see her head.

"This is fun. I can totally feel the entire inventory of the store from here, and when I'm done, my tactile sense will have evolved so that I can finally climb on walls like a spider!" she exclaimed, putting on a clean, brace-less grin as she felt around for various objects in the cabinets beneath her.

"You do that, Mabel. When Grunkle Stan comes back, tell him I went to go take out the trash." Dipper stated to Wendy and Mabel. The freckled teenager just nodded as she continued to read her magazine.

"Will do, Dipper. Just be careful who sees you." she remarked, clearly not paying too much attention. Dipper's response had just a hint of annoyance in it as he exited through the front door of the gift shop, mostly because he was surprised that Wendy could actually think he was dumb enough to blow his secret.

"Yeah, yeah, don't worry. I've got everything covered." he reassured her, before closing the front door to the gift shop behind him, and discovering the momentary safety of the outside. Sighing to himself at the frantic nature of this day so far, he made his way to the row of trash cans around the corner of the Mystery Shack.

But just as he was about to arrive at his destination, Dipper could only stuff his hands in his pockets in stupidity when he realized that he had forgotten the garbage bag he was supposed to be taking out.

Sighing, he started back towards the front door. Before he could get very far though, the sound of one of the trash cans falling over caught his attention. The sound was coming from around a corner, and when he took a closer look, he saw none other than Robbie, looking quite angry and impatient.

The gaunt teenager seemed to be attempting to work out his anger issues by kicking the downed trash can over and over again, despite the fact that his kicks didn't seem to be doing much damage at all. Dipper could only help but watch in curiosity as Robbie took out his frustration on an inanimate object, but at the same time, he also couldn't help but smile...

After all, he was winning. He knew exactly why Robbie was mad, and despite how wrong it was to think that way, Dipper was quite pleased with the fact. Unfortunately for him, getting lost in his own world of bliss was about to cost him, as Robbie seemed to avoid anger for a brief enough moment to notice Dipper watching him from around the corner.

"Hey! What are you looking at, pipsqueak?" Robbie remarked in an annoyed tone, causing Dipper to stumble in surprise as he was found out. He tried his best to regain his composure though as he stood up in front of Robbie.

"Uh, you must be mistaking me for my brother. As you can see, I'm obviously Dipper Pl-" he began, but Robbie put up a hand and looked away.

"Ugh, just shut up. I don't need to hear it. Why are you even here anyway?"

It was at this point, upon hearing Robbie's words, that Dipper was given a mental choice. He could inform Robbie that he'd forgotten the trash bag he was meant to take out, and walk away, allowing Robbie to win and retain some of his overflowing confidence. He thought for a few moments at the prospect of his other choice, and unfortunately for Dipper, a mixture of hormones and clouded judgment caused him to ignore the smart choice entirely.

"Oh, nothing really. I just happened to be taking a walk, and you know, I couldn't help but notice how hard you're taking this whole Wendy thing." Dipper stated in an tone of voice that was very unlike himself.

In response, Robbie's face became quite red, and he barked back loudly at Dipper. "What? What thing?! There's no thing with Wendy! She...she would tell me! She tells me everything! You're just her kid friend, and no matter how old you look, that's all your ever be!

Dipper glanced at the back of his hand, trying his best to not look serious about the situation. "You keep telling yourself that."

"If you want, I can just make you eat your words, Dipper. Or maybe I can't. We would know for sure. That is unless you're just...chicken." Robbie taunted, pointing a finger at Dipper as a sneer appeared on his face.

Dipper was caught now. He had seen that movie, and he knew that quote from memory. When he was a kid, a stupid taunt like this probably wouldn't have worked. He would have probably just laughed and walked away, clearly knowing better than to fall for something like that.

But for some reason, being a teenager, being in a state where your entire self-image can be affected by nothing more than simple words, seemed to cause Dipper to think otherwise. Pulling down his hat, he walked towards Robbie with a fist raised and anger beating through his body. What had started as an opportunity to make fun of Robbie had ended up just making Dipper mad.

"You know what? How about we do this, Robbie? I don't need anybody to fight for me this time!" Dipper declared, while Robbie just readied himself with a sneer on his face.

"Fine with me. Give me your best shot, pipsqueak."

Of course, the taunt just made Dipper angrier. There was a brief moment of stamping feet as Dipper ran forward to punch Robbie. And for that moment, it almost seemed like he would actually do it, and that it would actually work.

But that all blew up in his face when Dipper failed to realize the physics of his new body, and that he still wasn't completely used to it yet. With a panicked expression, Dipper missed Robbie completely with his punch, only to watch helplessly as he left himself completely open and Robbie's right fist headed straight for him.

There was a loud smack as Dipper tumbled backwards, eventually landing against the shack outside wall, his eye black enough that it looked like he had put on too much of Robbie's "eye-paint for men." Dipper groaned in pain as he struggled to get up, touching his eye and wincing at the sudden pain. Robbie just laughed of course, putting his arms at his sides and feeling quite triumphant.

"You might look like a teenager, but you're still not much of a _big deal_, Dipper. So _deal_ with it!" Robbie told him in a poor excuse of a pun, laughing obnoxiously to himself as Dipper just sighed and struggled to get up. He could feel scratches on his arms under the fabric of his shirt. Somehow that single punch had done way more damage than it should have.

Of course, Dipper could have never known that all this was about to work in his favor. When he saw Wendy standing behind Robbie, the forgotten trash bag in her hand, he only realized seconds later that the entire situation was about to flip in his favor.

"What's going on here?" Wendy asked in at first a concerned tone of voice. Of course, all she had to do was look over at the clearly hurt form of Dipper, and the fact that Robbie still had at least one of his fists closed. Her boyfriend's expression suddenly changed from a triumphant one to an embarrassed one. He started laughing in an attempt to try and defuse all the tension.

"Oh, uh, nothing, nothing. Dipper over here just tripped over one of the trash cans and hit himself. I was gonna help him out bu-" he tried to say, but Wendy didn't seem to be listening as she went straight towards Dipper. The injured were-teen could only try not to appear nervous as Wendy inspected his face, before glancing down at the trash can and then back at Robbie.

He tried his best to look innocent, but clearly, she wasn't buying it. And now Dipper knew all it would take was one more factor to tip the scales. So he said something under his breath, just loud enough to Wendy would catch it.

"Jeez, all I was doing was minding my own business, taking out the trash, and I get a black eye for it. Thanks a lot, Robbie..."

Exactly as Dipper had hoped, Wendy's expression became quite annoyed upon hearing this. When she turned around, Dipper proceeded to smile with satisfaction.

"Robbie! I told you I hated it when guys fight over me. But I hate it even more when guys start fights for no reason!"

"Wait, Wendy, it's not my fault. Dipper's the one who started it!" he protested, but his words seem to fall upon deaf ears as Wendy looked at the condition of Dipper's eye. And of course, Dipper speaking up again didn't help.

"I don't get it, Wendy. He kept ranting about how I was planning to steal you away from him. Doesn't he know that we're just friends, and the only reason I know you is because of my younger brother?" Dipper mentioned to her, manipulation oozing through his voice.

Wendy started to scowl, clearly getting more and more agitated with Robbie by the second. "You know, I knew you could be immature, but I didn't know it was this bad. Dipper Plus has been here for like, what, a few days, and already you're messing with him like you did with his kid brother. Not cool, Robbie."

Robbie didn't know what to say. He looked at how Wendy was acting towards "Dipper Plus." He could see the small smile appearing on the older Dipper's face. Robbie reached for his hair, ready to rip it out. This was insane, and he suddenly felt like he was the only sane person in the middle of it all. Finally, as Wendy's words replayed in his head over and over again, he realized he just couldn't take it any more.

Robbie pointed an accusing finger towards Wendy and Dipper, and the angry ranting began as he completely lost control.

"Are you dumb, Wendy? It's him! It's Dipper! He's fooled our buds, and now he's fooled you!? What's wrong with you, Wendy? Can't you see that this is all just a scheme to get you to like him!? He's just a stupid kid who thinks he can have whatever he wants, and I don't know how he did it, but he made himself older somehow, and now he's after you! Ugh, I just can't believe you, Wendy! All this time I thought you were the coolest thing since my guitar, but it turns out...it turns out..."

Robbie tried to hold himself back. He knew he had dug himself into a hole with his words. But no matter how hard he tried, his anger pushed those forbidden words out.

"...it turns out you've been on his side this whole time! I guess you might as well go ahead and date him then! After all, I'll only be your...9th ex-boyfriend? But then again, I guess you're used to going out with everyone and their brother!"

There was a sound of heavy breathing as Robbie finally finished. And only a second later, the reality of what he had said and all his consequences hit him. And they hit him hard.

Wendy said nothing as she absorbed Robbie's words. If Dipper wasn't so focused on keeping up this act of being the victim, the anger boiling inside him might have been cause enough to leap at Robbie and beat him down for saying such horrible things to her. But instead, Dipper allowed Wendy to handle the situation.

Wendy walked up to Robbie with a relatively calm expression. Her words seemed strangely docile.

"You're a real jerk, you know that?"

But as she glared into his eyes, he could feel the power of her anger boring right into his soul. Of course, the thing that scared Robbie the most, was that up until this point, he had no idea Wendy even had the capacity to be this angry in the first place.

Robbie made a nervous grin, but he had a good feeling it wasn't going to work. "Hold on a second, Wendy. What I meant by all that wa-"

The teen never had the chance to finish. A very hard kick from one of Wendy's boots hit him straight in the knee, sending a spike of pain coursing through Robbie's leg as he was forced down into a fetal position. He held onto his now hurt limb, holding back tears as he looked up at the suddenly menacing form of Wendy glaring down at him.

"Well, I guess that's that. It was fun while it lasted, Robbie. But now it's time for you to find yourself a new girlfriend. Good luck with that...jerk."

The word jerk, coming from Wendy's mouth, hurt Robbie more than he ever thought it could. While Robbie watched Wendy walk away from him, leaving him to his embarrassment, Dipper hadn't blinked once the whole time. Amazed at the spectacle of Wendy actually showing that kind of anger and focus, Dipper said nothing as she helped him up despite the fact that he was capable of getting up himself.

"Come on, D-Plus. Let's go get you some ice for that eye of yours." she told him, helping him along as they left Robbie and the trash bag behind. Robbie could only crawl forward a little bit, using the bag as a makeshift pillow as he continued to hold back tears and forget the horror he had just been put through.

Guilt began to sprout up in Dipper's stomach as he caught a last glimpse of Robbie's shattered form, but Dipper just gulped and tried his best to just ignore it.

Back in the shack, Dipper waited on a chair behind the counter, nervous because of the fact that Wendy had left and that he didn't exactly know where Grunkle Stan was. Nevertheless, it wasn't long before she was back with a rag full of ice.

Pulling up a chair in front of him, she began to press it against his eye. Realizing that perhaps Stan wasn't around after all, Dipper began to smile as the cool sensation from the ice began to relax the pain in his injured eye.

"Thanks, Wendy." he said, still somewhat trying to play the victim card despite the fact that guilt was telling him otherwise.

"It's no big. I'm just still surprised of how Robbie acted. He's never been like that before." she replied, clearly becoming a little more distressed the more she thought about it. Dipper opened his mouth and tried to sound as apologetic as possible.

"If I had known he was going to say those things, Wendy, I would ha-" he tried to begin, but to his surprise, Wendy put a finger over his mouth, silencing him. She gave him a freckled smile that practically could have melted his heart away completely from its sheer warmth.

"Like I said, it's no big. I told you that I hate it when guys fight over me. I think I just proved to you that I can handle my own problems. But that's sweet of you anyway, Dipper."

Dipper gulped over what he was about to say next. "But, you know, you didn't have to break up with him...

Wendy said nothing at first to this, instead looking aside as an unsure expression appeared on her face. Then, she sighed, taking the ice away from Dipper's face for a moment.

"It...it was coming anyway. If there's one thing that Robbie's right about it, it's my record. I dunno, Dipper, but I just get kind of bored easily. It's a teenage thing, so I don't know if you completely get it yet. But as far as Robbie is concerned, I was getting close to being done with him anyway. I just didn't think it would end like that..." Wendy said, her voice trailing off as she made it very obvious that she was starting to feel quite bad over how she had acted before.

"I'm sorry, Wendy." Dipper began again, putting his head down and trying to appear as complacent as possible. "If I had known this would all happen, I never would ha-"

He was silenced again by Wendy's finger, not that he really minded. She smiled again, clearly thankful for something, but Dipper wasn't sure what.

"Chill out, Dipper. You're totally cool in my book. After all, you didn't start that fight."

There was a mixture of guilt and glee as Dipper heard those words come out of Wendy's mouth. In response, he laughed nervously, unable to truly be happy over hearing her declaration but also unable to feel truly guilty.

"Yeah, not my fault. Not my fault at all..."

Silence followed that statement, and for a few seconds, there was nothing but Dipper and Wendy looking into each others eyes as Wendy continued to apply the ice. What would have been a possibly tender moment was interrupted when Mabel finally appeared from behind them.

"Hello!" she cried out. "Having fun over here?"

"Yeah, Mabel." Dipper said, clearly annoyed that his sister had messed with what might have been a moment for him. "We're having tons of it."

"Wendy? Wendy!?" Grunkle Stan's voice rang out from far away, sounding quite agitated. "I threw my back out chasing that stranger around! Get over here and help me get my back scratcher from the top shelf!"

Wendy sighed, but rather than ignoring her boss, she stood up and handed the ice to Dipper. "Ugh, let me go take care of this. I'll be right back, guys."

With that, she left the room. Mabel's eyes were completely focused on Dipper no less than a second later. She made a very wide, shining grin.

"Somebody's been falling for somebody else." she commented, but Dipper just laughed at her statement.

"Oh, come off of it, Mabel. Nothing's going on. Wendy's just being nice."

Mabel crossed her arms, somewhat surprised at that response. "You know, usually you would totally be agreeing with me. Being a were-teen is really changing you, isn't it, Dipper?

"Maybe I'm just trying to be more mature. Anyway, care to tell me why Grunkle Stan threw out his back from chasing a "stranger" around the shack?" Dipper asked, clearly concerned that there was a good chance his sister might have compromised their secrecy.

"Oh, that was me! I covered my face with hair and started running around after Wendy dared me that I couldn't without running into a wall. Then Grunkle Stan thought I was a thief and he started chasing me around until he tripped and messed his back up. Honestly, it was all an accident. But it was kind of funny, actually." Mabel told her brother with a loud giggle. He did not seem amused.

"That's not funny at all."

Mabel just stuck her tongue out at him and ignored the concern in his voice. "Oh, look at the bright side, Dipper. Now he can't move much for a while, and that means he won't be seeing us like this anytime soon. Isn't that great?"

Dipper leaned back in his chair, still keeping the ice up against his eye as a confident smile grew on his face. "I guess it is when you put it that way. But I've still got something way better."

Mabel didn't even say a word as she leaned forward, clearly ready to hear any and all juicy details that Dipper was ready to tell her.

"Wendy just broke up with Robbie. I heard it with my own ears. Sure, it was kind of my fault for playing the victim and worsening his situation. And sure, maybe I should be feeling a lot more guilt than I'm letting on. But the fact is that I'm a teenager now, and that means certain things have to start taking priority in my life. And the way I see it, this is a sign that my chance has finally come."

Dipper cleared his throat, quite happy to say his next statement.

"Tomorrow, before she leaves for her shift, I'm finally going to ask Wendy out on a date. As Dipper Plus, of course..."

Mabel just looked back at him with a somewhat amazed expression, before rocking back and forth in her chair in excitement.

"Wow, Dipper! I totally was right! This is exactly like one of those soap operas I caught Grunkle Stan watching! Maybe she'll be your girlfriend after all! Let's just hope Wendy doesn't find out that you basically lied to her and everyone stays ignorant and happy!" she remarked, clearly unaware of how negative she was sounding.

Dipper felt his heart drop into his stomach upon hearing her last statement. He chuckled, trying to pass away the intense feelings of guilt and doubt growing inside him. But really, who was he kidding...

The guilt was there. All of this was indeed still his fault. And he had learned by now that these things had a bad habit of coming back and biting you in the butt when you least expected them...

* * *

**Hope that was good enough for y'all! Dipper Plus isn't making the greatest decisions from what it looks like, and although it seems Robbie is being made out to be a villain, I suggest you keep on as I update. I'd really not like to fall into the stereotype of "evil Robbie" that seems to permeate a lot of GF fics.**


	4. Part 4

**Hey guys! It's been awhile since I've done a chapter on this story, huh? Well, a number of things have inspired me to finish it. The ending to the first season of Gravity Falls was amazing, and at the very least inspired me to finish this little tale I started. Plus, we never got any resolution between Wendy and Dipper (they hinted at it right in the end), so that's still up in the air. I look forward to how the show will handle it, but for now, you have this story.**

**A few notes on this story so far. Canon-wise, these events take place before Boyz Crazy, so Wendy and Robbie were still together until this story. So in hindsight, this is still part of Season One's canon in a way, for anyone who might be wondering.**

**Anyway, I'm glad to be back into this, and I'm definitely going to be finishing it! So read, review and enjoy!**

* * *

There were only so many chances in a person's life. Only so many moments when they could take the bull by the horns, defy fate, and go where no man has ever gone before.

For Dipper Pines, one of those chances, was now. And that very thought made him so afraid that he almost couldn't stand.

Trying to control himself, Dipper stood in the hall just outside the corner of the the gift shop, desperately attempting to will himself forward. He had spent a good four hours as a were-teen so far, and luckily, the odds has been in his favor today. Grunkle Stan was asleep, and besides the occasional shout for Wendy to help him, he had been virtually non-existent today. It was an amazing coincidence that the only two people he'd seen all morning besides "Mabel-Plus" were Wendy and Soos. Having thanked the higher powers above six or seven times over by now, Dipper struggled with a new challenge.

He fought with himself, trying to figure out exactly how to string together the next set of words meant for Wendy.

Because whatever Dipper did, he knew for a fact that if he was going to ask her this, he was going to have to ask her in the most perfect way possible. After all, it would only put the probability of success in his favor.

Dipper looked towards the opposite wall, narrowing his eyes seriously. Practice made perfect, he guessed.

"Wendy, I'd like to go out with you." he stated, only to shake his head in dissatisfaction just a moment later.

"Ugh, too serious." Dipper remarked.

The teen's expression changed. Clearly, a different tactic was required. Dipper thought of what Robbie said when he asked Wendy out, replaying those words in his head and then shuffling them around to suit his own style.

Dipper then made a nervous sort of expression, putting his hand behind his head and staring straight at the wall as he stated his next attempt.

"So, Wendy. We've been hanging out for a while now, and I was just wondering...you want to, go out, or something?"

The words seemed to roll off his tongue, but as Dipper replayed them again in his own head, they seemed to sound more unnappealing then he had thought. After all, Robbie was no longer Wendy's girlfriend anymore. And thought it may or may not have been partially Dipper's fault, was Dipper's teenage nemesis really the best example to follow?

Probably not.

He took a deep breath. "Come on, Dipper. You can do this. It's not that hard."

Dipper stared at the wall again, his gaze defiant. "Wendy, I've got something to ask you. And it's really important."

The seriousness permeated his voice again. Why was this so hard, he wondered. Dipper kept thinking about what he had learned during his fiasco with his clones, thinking about the fact that his well-structured plans and checklist had really meant nothing in the end. But before he had any more time to dwell on these facts, a hand came down on Dipper's shoulder. His sister's giddy voice caught him completely off-guard.

"And you make fun of me for talking myself! Ha! I just caught you with red all over your mouth, Seargent Self-Speak!"

Dipper yelped slightly upon being discovered. But when he realized it was just "Mabel Plus" behind him, he just raised a suspicious eyebrow as he replayed her eccentric statement in his head.

"Seargent what? Mabel, can't you see I'm busy here? I really don't need anyone to be sneaking up on my right now. I'm on edge as it is."

Maebl grinned through her braceless teeth, giving him a very sly look. "Oh, I think you do. And based on all of my inexhaustable life experience, the shy boy always gets what he wants with the love of his life only when his sister pushes him outside of his comfort zone!"

"Wait, what?"

That was all Dipper had managed to get out, and before he knew it, his sister had her hands gripped tightly on the back of his shirt. With a forceful tug and a push, Dipper was out of the safety of his hiding spot, and sent into the unforgiving gift shop beyond.

Nearly slipping on the slick floor, Dipper could just barely keep himself steady as Wendy looked up from her boredom and her Indy Fuzz magazine, now noticing his prescence.

"Oh, watch it there, Dipper. Soos just mopped, so you might want to take it down a notch if you don't want to break anything. It's easier to just warn you ahead of time rather than speed up the drying process myself." Wendy said to him non-nonchalantly, yawning to herself as she leaned back and stared at the ceiling.

It was a hot day, and the lone fan in the room could barely keep everyone cool. A good four customers had come into the Mystery Shack gift shop in the last few hours. Besides the magazine that kept her attention somewhat, Wendy didn't have much to think about besides the unpleasant events with Robbie the other day.

But of course, before Dipper could so much as respond to Wendy's warning about the floor, Mabel skidded in front of him and announced her words with the tonality of an extremely excited duck.

"Wendy! Wendy! Dipper's got something really important he wants to ask you! Something he knows he'll never have the chance to ask you ever again!" she quacked, clearly making it difficult for her brother to weasel his way out of the situation.

Beads of sweat began to appear on Dipper's brow. He smiled awkwardly, wiping them away and struggling to regain his composure. There were words he wanted to say to Mabel right now that he would not have had the "creativity" to have thought of if he was in his pre-teen state of mind.

Wendy seemed to perk up a bit thought, the prospect of this whole situation making her day suddenly interesting. "Oh yeah? What's up?"

The lanky were-teen could barely get his words out, laughing nervously as he tried to. Dipper had to plant his feet into the ground so hard to stop himself from shaking that he felt rooted into the gift shop floor like a tree. On top of that, the slippery nature of Soos's less than adequate mopping wasn't helping.

"Uh, well, you see, Wendy...I was just wondering something."

Dipper scratched the back of his head, and started pacing backward, suddenly discouraged.

"You know, maybe it's not really the right time. I could always ask you later. Yeah, why don't I ask you later? That's a good idea, I'll ask you later." he stated, making everything sound like a joke, even though he was quite serious.

Mabel was quick to get behind her brother though, cutting off his retreat. Clearly, she wasn't about to let Dipper shoot himself in the foot, when he was so close to his goal.

"There's no time like now, Dipper. No way am I just letting you walk away from this one!" she exclaimed, and sure enough, as a teenager, she was strong enough to stop him from withdrawing.

Eventually, Mabel stopped pushing as her brother gave up on his escape, and Dipper was left standing in front of a waiting Wendy. As he looked straight into her seemingly calm eyes, he could only wonder what she was thinking. She was so carefree, so relaxed, that truthfully, he was often jealous of her. After all, he practically idolized her as the epitome of cool. There was something about that pretty, freckled face of hers that made him wonder if he was doing things right in his own life. After all, how could she be so seemingly satisfied with hers?

Was she really this chill all the time?

Maybe, Dipper thought, it was all some sort of front. Maybe Wendy was different in ways that Mabel and him couldn't even begin to imagine. Maybe, she was different in ways he didn't want to imagine. After all, he remembered a certain three words from the past quite well. And unfortunately for Wendy, "trust no one" applied just as much to her as it did anyone else.

However, that wasn't important, Dipper concluded to himself. Debating these things in his head right now wasn't going to be much help to him.

The time had come for action, whether he liked it or not. Dipper took a deep breath, and knowing that this time he wasn't talking to himself, he stepped out of his precious ring of comfort, and said to his crush those dreaded words.

"What do you think of movies, Wendy?"

Wendy smiled, raising a sly eyebrow. "Movies? I like movies. Who doesn't?"

"Okay, cool, cool." Dipper replied, with a forced laugh in his voice. There was a brief pause, before he said the statement that would seal his intentions.

"So what would you think of going to see a movie, but with me?

There was a brief moment of silence, as Mabel smiled beside her brother, proud of him for conquering his fear. To Dipper, this moment felt like an eternity, as Wendy got up and pulled out her phone.

She scrolled through her calendar, before smiling and nearly hitting herself in the forehead.

"Oh, I almost forgot. I hate keeping schedules."

"I think I'm going to have to turn you down though, Dipper. Sorry about that." she told him, with her usual laid-back tone of voice.

Dipper's entire world seemed to burn up with those words. Suddenly, Wendy's carefree tone of voice didn't sound anywhere near as pleasant to Dipper as it had before. It took all his willpower to stop himself from putting his head down. Next to him, Mabel's smile was quickly fading. Even Dipper's normaly estatic sister was beginning to wonder if she had made a big mistake.

"Oh." Dipper replied, his voice devoid of all color. Before he could walk away though, Wendy put a hand on his shoulder, clearly realizing the impression she had just given off.

"Hey, hey, let me finish." she said reassuringly, smiling just a bit to try and push away Dipper's saddened expression. It worked, somewhat.

"I have to turn you down on that, because me and my friends are already going to see a movie today. But now that I think about it, it'd be cool if you guys would be able to tag along with us."

Wendy paused for a moment, how she'd phrased the end of her statement. As she looked back at "Dipper Plus" and thought about what he was now, and what he had once been, she decided to boost his budding self-confidence, if only a little.

"Scratch that. I think it would be cool if you came with me, Dipper." she stated, looking over his shoulder at his sister next. "And you too, Mabel."

Dipper's expression lit up in an instant. It was if his world had suddenly turned completely upside down, but in the good way. "W-W-What? Really! Yeah, of course! We're...we're definitely up for that!" he exclaimed, his face aglow with a smile.

Mabel's face seemed to light up even more than Dipper's.

"Oh my gosh! My first teenage movie! This is gonna be so awesome!" she said, pumping her fist into the air excitedly.

"So I'll tell you guys what", Wendy continued, her voice calm and smooth, "we'll go after my shift is over. Thompson's got no car today, so we gotta walk, but the theater's just down through the woods from here in town. Not too far, and it's a nice little walk."

"Oh, I almost forgot!" Mabel chimed in all of a sudden. Even in her excitement, she still had enough sense to put her brother first.

"I, uh...have to give Waddles a bath before we go. He's got a bit of...a...a chafing problem. Yeah, that's it, a chafing problem! I'm not even supposed to be telling you guys. He's, uh, very sensitive about it. But looks I'm telling you anyway, because, you know, I got to take care of it!"

Mabel giggled strangely through the following awkward moment.

"So I guess that means you two have to walk ahead without me! Crazy coincidence, huh?"

Wendy could only chuckle awkwardly in response to Mabel's words, having receiving an unpleasant number of unwanted mental images of Mabel's pet pig.  
"Uh, okay, Mabel. You can meet us there whenever you're done with that." the red-head replied, trying not to cringe.

As Mabel expected, Dipper's expression seemed to only glow with even more happiness as he heard those words come out of Wendy's mouth.

In fact, Dipper seemed so happy, that Mabel was sure he was on the edge of proposing to Wendy, when suddenly Wendy's phone started ringing. She put on a frustrated expression as she checked who was calling her.

"Oh, what is it now, Dad?" Wendy said, clearly annoyed.

She flipped open her cellphone and headed for the door. "Watch the counter for me, guys? I gotta take this."

And with that, Wendy swiftly made her way outside, with Dipper waving at her, an over-excited look still pasted on his face.

"Yeah, totally, Wendy! We'll be right here! Right here until you get back! You can count on us! Mostly me!"

Dipper's nervous laughter at the end of his string of phrases only made Mabel smile wider as she closed in behind him.

Putting her hands on his shoulders and smiling wide through her braceless teeth, she almost didn't have to say a word for her brother to get the message.

Of course, it was more fun if she said something anyway.

"I haven't heard a thank you yet. I believe somebody just became the best sister ever. And by somebody, I mean me."

Dipper's expression seemed to slowly relax the longer he was out of Wendy's prescence. His heart was slowing down significantly in his chest, but it took him at least a good two seconds to hear Mabel and respond.

"Yeah. Thanks, Mabel." he replied, hugging her tightly. "Though I'm going to guess that I owe you big-time for this. I'm definitely not looking forward to that."

Mabel simply laughed in response to his statement. There was a bit of devious air to her tone of voice.

"Oh, Dipper. You know me too well by now..." she said, a knowing smile on her face as she lightly patted her beloved sibling on the back.

Being a good sister had its own rewards.

* * *

There was something about being alone with Wendy that made Dipper feel like he was completely at peace with himself. Just walking with her, being able to talk to her one on one, without any interrutpions whatsover, it was an experience like no other. Part of the reason, of course, was that Dipper had never really been around a girl like this, at least, not with one that wasn't his sister. And of course, part of it was the fact that Wendy had a large, reserved space in his heart. Even in his teenage body, he didn't know if this equated to love, but Dipper could assume it must be something close.

Now the only thing he had to figure out, was whether or not she felt the same way.

"...so wait, wait, wait. You're telling me, that you actually saw gnomes in the forest? Like, red hat, annoying, small little gnomes?" Wendy asked, clearly laughing at the notion.

Dipper smiled back at her, hands in his pockets as they walked along the lonesome forest path.

"I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. In fact, they even joined themselves together into this giant monster and chased after us. We only outran them in the Mystery Cart, and we still barely escaped with our lives!"

Wendy laughed again. Normally, if it was Mabel doing this, this would have annoyed Dipper. But instead, he simply laughed with her.

She wiped a stray tear away from her eye, clearly having a good time. "I'm sorry, Dipper. I know we saw ghosts and all at the Dusk 2 Dawn, but that's still some pretty ridiculous stuff."

Wendy put a finger up to her chin, thinking for a moment. "Maybe I should get around to staring at that wall and rethinking everything..."

Dipper looked ahead as he listened to her words. He thought about them for a moment, and then turned to her, suddenly sounding serious.

"Wendy, what if I told you that I sacrificed something, something extremely important to me, through time travel. And what if I told you that the the reason for all this, was so I could save my sister's pig?" he asked her. There was a moment of silence as Wendy stopped walking, obviously not knowing what to say to that.

Dipper stopped too, waiting for a response of some kind. Wendy just looked at him with a surprised expression, before bursting into light laughter just a moment later.

"Huh." Dipper said, turning away. I thought so.

Much to his surprise, Wendy bumped him in the arm. "Hey, lighten up. You know, you're making me laugh. I haven't laughed in like a day. Thanks, Dipper."

Feeling a lot better, Dipper turned to see Wendy's sweet smile.

All Dipper needed was that smile. That pretty, freckled smile was enough to make him forget all his troubles, if only for the moment.

It even made him forget that in the time span of just four more hours, he'd back in the small, unassuming pre-teen body that he arrived at Gravity Falls in.

* * *

When Dipper and Wendy finally made it to the movie theater, they were met by Wendy's usual group of friends. Nate and Lee were quick to mess with "D-Plus", and whenever Lee said anything, Dipper was quick to notice just how fresh the boy's breath was.

In fact, it was so bad, that everyone held their noses as they stood in line for their tickets.

"Ugh, can you like eat some smoked herring or something to counteract that?" Nate said, having become very sick of the strong mint smell by now.

Lee simply hit him in the back of the head, somewhat annoyed. "You loser, this is your fault!"

Nate rubbed the back of his head, snickering as he did so. "I'm a loser? Techinically, you're the loser who fell for the toothpaste-stuffed orange in the first place. It's way more your fault than it is mine."

Nate and Lee seemed ready to go on for a while, if not for Tambry, who seemed annoyed enough to actually look up from her phone and respond to their antics.

"Hey, guys, you're both losers. You can either debate that fact, or we can like, see this movie already." she stated, and luckily, it was enough to get Nate and Lee out of their bout for now.

The movie itself wasn't anything special. Dipper wasn't so much interested in the paper-thin plot and over-the-top action as much as he was interested in the girl next to him.

Being a teenager gave him a number of new feelings. When he looked at Wendy now, everything felt different. Before, he had just been enamored in her pretty face and her cool demeanor. He was noticing stuff about her now that he hadn't noticied before. Some things were even starting to make him uncomfortable. Just thinking about the thought of Wendy in a bikini was putting him in a weird place.

But rather than think about that, Dipper focused on what was at hand. After all, he wasn't really here for the movie.

"Dumb movie, huh?" he whispered to Wendy next to him.

She continued to crunch on popcorn, half-watching, half-listening. "Yeah, I guess. Kind of a waste of money, now that I think about it. Just like this popcorn."

Dipper eyed the popcorn, suddenly feeling a little hungry.

"Hey, can I have a little bit of that?" he asked.

Wendy gave him a somewhat sly smile in response. "Sure, but aren't you supposed to be the one offering it to me?"

Dipper was taken aback, suddenly confused. "Wait, what?"

Wendy bumped in the arm, laughing as she offered him some popcorn. "Ah, I'm just kidding. This is a pretty alright date so far."

The taste of the cheap movie theater popcorn seemed to be inconsquential after Dipper sunk back into his seat.

Date. She has said date. He didn't just imagine that, right? No, Wendy had clearly called this outing, whatever it was, a date.

Dipper looked behind him a for a moment. Thompson was sitting in the back next to Tambry, a nervous look on his face. She was texting with both hands, clearly ignoring the movie. To their left, Nate and Lee seemed to be busy throwing candy at each other and making a scene. It would be a wonder if they didn't get kicked out before the middle of the movie, Dipper thought.

By the time Dipper's gaze moved back onto Thompson and Tambry, he noticed Thomspon slowly but surely putting his arm around her shoulders. She didn't seem to move in response, continually texting on her phone and practically ignoring everything around her.

But she didn't shrug him away either. Tambry even managed to glance in his direction once, as if registering his action in her own, mysterious way. And even as she went back to typing, Thompson himself seemed to relax as his plan saw success.

When Dipper turned back around, he looked at Wendy, who was busy with her popcorn and the movie in front of her. She had a bit of a glazed look in her eyes, but continued to watch nonetheless.

Without thinking much about it, Dipper copied what he had seen. Slowly but surely, he put one of his long, lanky arms around Wendy. There was a brief moment before they touched, and Dipper's heart skipped a beat in that moment. When they touched though, and he rested his arm around her shoulders, Dipper relaxed once he realized Wendy wasn't pushing him away.

In fact, Dipper's face only reddened as Wendy actually nudged closer to him, clearly enjoying his company. Not knowing if he should make eye contact with Wendy or not, Dipper simply continued watching the movie on-screen, quite content with this turn of events.

Unknown to both him and Wendy, a dark, guant figure watched them from the back row. Robbie hadn't been invited to this little get-together. In fact, he hadn't really been invited to anything lately. And just looking down at Dipper, and seeing him being this close to his ex-girlfriend, made Robbie do nothing short of boil with anger and jealousy.

But even his brooding nature couldn't resist the giddy voice of "Mabel Plus."

"Awww, my little brother's growing up so fast. Look at him, already on his first date." she commented, but Robbie simply crossed his arms and sneered.

Mabel seemed to be ignoring his bad attitiude though. "Hey, how long do you think it'll be till they kiss?"

That statement was more than enough to set Robbie off, of course.

"Uh, I don't know, when that pipsqueak blows up! Jeez, like I even care! As far as I'm concerned, they can be in stupid for all I care!" he exclaimed.

Mabel put on a confused look. "They're "in stupid"? What does that mean?"

"Yeah, in stupid! You know, because love is stupid."

Mabel sat back in her chair, trying to understand what this brooding teen was trying to say. Her face lit up for a moment, and she held up a finger in what seemed like success.

"Oh! I..."

"...I don't get it."

Robbie seemed ready to rip his hair out. "Ugh, they're in stupid, instead of in love! It's a joke, okay! A good joke, but I guess you're too in stupid to get it!"

Slowly, Mabel seemed to understand what was going on. Looking back down at Wendy and Dipper, and then looking back at Robbie, her brain popped up an idea.

"Hey, Robbie." she said, giggling in between words, "since Wendy and Dipper seem to be having a good time being "in stupid", why don't you and I be in stupid too!"

Robbie was quickly taken aback. "Yeah, thanks, but no thanks. Just stay on your side, okay?"

Mabel simply giggled in response. And when Robbie's gloved hand made its way to his armrest, Mabel was quick to snake her fingers on top of his. He retracted almost immeaditely the moment he felt her touch, like a snake had bit him.

"Hey, watch where you're putting those!" he complained, a hint of red showing in his cheeks. Mabel seemed to only giggle even more.

"It's your fault for leaving yourself so defenseless." she stated.

Despite the fact that this movie was indeed quite boring, at least to her, Mabel had found something else all the more entertaining.

Her brother, meanwhile, was living a dream.

The hours were ticking away, but Dipper had quickly lost track of time. As long as he was like this, with Wendy, he didn't care where he was, what time it was, or what they were doing.

It was all fine, good and dandy: as long as he was with her.

* * *

**Dipper seems to be on Cloud 9! Nothing could possibly go wrong now, right? I guess y'all will just have to wait and see. Stay tuned!**


	5. Part 5

**Guess who's got another chapter for you guys? I couldn't resist. I'm having too much fun with this, and the plot is thickening. This originally was going to be a shorter story, but we'll see how much longer it'll go. Nevertheless, read, enjoy, and be sure to review! I run on reviews!**

**Anyway, back to Gravity Falls!**

* * *

For Dipper, the movie might have been just okay, at least if he had gone by himself.

Coupled with the fact that he went to see it as a tall teenager, it was a little more than okay. And if you added in the fact that he also went with Wendy, who was his major crush, and that this outing to the movies effectively became his first date, then suddenly, the movie was the greatest thing Dipper had ever experienced. The lack of plot, stereotypical characters, and mindless action were all together a miniscule price to pay in return for being able to so close to Wendy, if only for a little while.

And so, as Dipper, Wendy, Mabel, Tambry, Thompson, Lee and Nate left the movie theater, each satisfied in one way or another, Dipper himself expected the night to be pretty much over.

Of course, that couldn't be far from the truth.

"Hey losers!" Lee said, reaching for the small backpack Nate had brought with him. His hand quickly fished inside the back pocket, pulling out a large bag of fluffy marshmallows. Laughing to himself, he showcased them like they were valuables worth millions.

"Check out what I got, haha! Who's up up for a crazy bonfire by the lake?" Lee exclaimed, only to find himself struggling to keep his soft prize as Nate started pulling the marshmallows away.

"Let go, man! Those are mine, and the crazy bonfire was my idea!" he argued, but Lee seemed to be having none of it. And the plastic holding the marshmallows seemed to be getting more and more taut by the minute.

"Your idea? Did you check your brain cells lately, doofus? It was my idea to do something by the lake in the first place, so I get the credit for the awesome idea!" Lee announced, still pulling on the marshmallow bag with seemingly no intent on letting go.

As the two teens seemed unwilling to compromise, Wendy quickly stepped in.

"Hey, can we take it down a notch? You both came up with a rad idea. Let's agree on that and just go down to the lake." she said to the two best friends, trying to sound as reasonable as possible.

"Not until I get my credit!" Lee barked, pulling even harder. The plastic started tearing.

"You don't deserve any credit! Your breath still smells like toothpaste!" Nate replied with annoyance. Holes started to appear in the bag.

"Yeah, and that was your fault!"

"No, it's your fault for falling for it!"

It seemed that Lee and Nate's arguing would have gone on to no end, if not for a loud rip that signified the plastic bag finally tearing apart. Of course, the air filled with marshmallows just an instant later.

As they dropped to the ground, a few dropped in Tambry's hair. And surprisingly, it was enough to make her look up from her phone. She did not look amused. Thompson tasting one out of hair didn't help either. She glared at him as he chewed on one of the sugary treats that had landed in her single pink lock, clearly not happy with him using her hair as a serving dish.

"What?" Thompson said defensively, still chewing. "They're really good. You should try one."

Wendy just kicked some of the marshmallows on the ground, sighing audibly. "Well, looks like that plan's a bust. I guess we're not roasting any thing down by the lake."

Dipper didn't have to be a genius to see what was going on. He spoke quickly.

"Wait! The plan's not a bust just yet. You guys go get a spot down by the lake, and I'll go get the marshmallows." Dipper stated, making sure to grin widely to show everyone his clearly good intentions.

"But isn't the grocery store like a mile from here or something?" Mabel said, too caught up in the situation to realize she was impeding Dipper as opposed to helping him.

Even Tambry put in her two cents, albeit without looking up from her phone. "It's also a Sunday, and it's closing in like ten minutes."

"Well, even more reason for me to go! I'll be back so quickly, it'll be like I never left." Dipper said through an awkward smile. The other teens waved him off, save for Wendy, who waited for just a moment.

"Hey." she said, sounding unusually serious. "Be back quick, alright? We'll be by the big clearing near the old abandoned boat. There's something I really want to show you when you get back."

Surprise hit Dipper like a mach truck. Fortunately, the feeling was quickly replaced with elation.

"Of course, Wendy. I'll be back in a flash." Dipper stated, backing up before turning around and breaking into a run.

"Bye, Wendy!" he managed to get out, before partially tripping, having to take a moment to regain his composure to start running again.

Behind him, Wendy smiled.

Maybe she was wrong about boys only thinking about themselves.

* * *

As a kid, Dipper wasn't a great runner. Being chased after monsters on a constant basis always gave adrenaline of course, giving him some temporary running ability where he otherwise might not have it.

But even with his longer legs and Wendy's perfect smile burned into his mind, Dipper could not trick his body into thinking it was being chased no matter how hard he tried. And so, he went through the painful experience of pushing himself physically in order to make it on time.

To make matters worse, he bumped into a multitude of people along the way, clearly still not used to the nuances of his teenage body. It was a wonder Dipper didn't get into a scuffle before he finally arrived at the grocery store.

The fates did not seem to on his side, thought, as the moment he walked towards the door, a familiar face posted the dreaded closing sign upon it.

Soos's smile reassured Dipper though, if only a little bit.

"Oh, hey D-Plus! I didn't know you'd be around town! How are your younger siblings doing? Coincidentally, I have not seen them around today!"

"Uh, fine, they're doing just fine. What are you doing here?" Dipper asked, clearly a bit confused.

Soos's eyes perked up as he processed the question.

"Oh! This is just another part-part time job. I kind of owe my abuela for an incident with her toilet. If you were the younger Dipper, I would have totally told you all about. But since you're not, please, don't ask."

Dipper raised one eyebrow, not completely understanding his friend. He was quick to shake his head though, realizing there were more important things at hand.

"Okay, whatever." he said, clearly impatient. "All I want is for you to let me inside! I know you guys are closed, but I need to buy marshmallows, or I'm going to lose my chance with Wendy!"

Soos smiled through his gopher-like teeth. "Well, why didn't you just say so, D-Plus? I'll just take this little sign off and you ca-"

He stopped suddenly in mid-sentence. Soos's eyes narrowed as he looked at "Dipper Plus" with obvious suspicion. The air suddenly thickened around the two of them.

"Wait just a minute. You're losing your chance with Wendy? That's my bro Dipper's chance right there! The younger Pines has been crushing on her since he first got here." Soos stated, but Dipper seemed to be just becoming more frantic the more he realized his chance was going down the drain.

"I'm...I'm doing my brother a favor! Look, just let me get the marshmallows. I'll give you five bucks if you do!" Dipper pleaded, but Soos wasn't having any of it.

"Sorry, Dipper-Plus, but this bro doesn't roll that way. I'm not going let my bro Dipper get his first love taken away by some punk older brother. Not in a gazillion years."

Soos backed away from the glass, reaching for a wire-like handle above.

"Soos! Wait! You don't understa-" Dipper attempted to say, only to be cut off by the sound of the metal grate coming down in front of the glass, effectively cutting him off.

Dipper sighed heavily as he acknowledged his failure. Turning around and taking the first step on the trek back to the the lakeside.

There was a good chance Wendy and her friends were going to be disappointed with him. Who would have thought that Soos's loyalty to Dipper would turn out to be his downfall?

Irony was a cruel mistress.

* * *

By the time he'd managed to find his way through the forest and find the fire that signified where the group was on the shore of Lake Gravity Falls, it was almost dark.

Walking into the scene, Dipper half-expected them to burn him at the stake for not getting the marshmallows he'd promised.

Instead, he was greeted by the loud, excited voice of his sister, who was busy stuffing her face with marshmallows, using two very large sticks.

"Difper Pluf! You're baff!" she said through sticky teeth, as she chewed on the melting treats.

Surprised, Dipper looked over to see that all the teens, Wendy included, were enjoying hot marshmallows over the open fire in the center.

"I was too late, but I thought you guys said weren't any marshmallows left..." Dipper said, his voice trailing off as he felt like hitting himself for thinking so negatively before.

"Turns out Nate had a big stash of marshmallows underneath the first bag. You left before he remembered it." Wendy said, before taking a bite out of a nice golden-brown one.

"Mmmm," she said between chews. "Thompson was right, these are pretty good."

"I'm so glaff this sfuff doesn't sfick to my braces." Mabel exclaimed as she chewed extensively on a particularly big marshmallow. Next to her, Nate and Lee were engaged in a contest to see who could burn the other person's marshmallow faster. They passed fire around between their sticks, laughing as they watched their marshmallows explode in the heat.

Thompson and Tambry just watched the fire, save for Tambry, whose attention was still mostly on the phone in her one hand.

"Oh, Dipper Plus, now that you're back..." Wendy said, and a suddenly happy Dipper was quick to cut her off.

"Oh, yeah. What did you want to show me?" he asked, only to receive an answer in the form of a hand interlocking in his. Wendy's pull was pretty hard to resist, but it wasn't like Dipper was putting up much of a fight.

"It's this way. We'll leave my buds to their marshmallows. You have to see this." she stated, and Dipper simply smiled in response, allowing her to lead the way.

Their trek into the forest was a quick one, but it was beyond the group and their bright fire. Wendy finally stopped at a large stump that overlooked a clearing right over the lake. Dipper stood by as Wendy made her way over to a huge, ancient-looking tree, brushing her hand against the bark before motioning for Dipper.

"Dipper. Come over and take a look at this." she asked, and Dipper was quick to come by her side. Marked in the tree were the initials WC and MDC. Above them was a crude image inset in the wood, one of a large T-Rex, complete with an axe and a lumberjack hat. Dipper couldn't resist chuckling once he saw that.

"So those are your initials under the Lumberjack T-Rex? Cool." Dipper said, giving Wendy the opportunity she'd been waiting for to show off a little.

"Uh-Huh. This is my little hideaway. I found it with my dad when I was ten, and it's been my ultra-secret chill-out place ever since." she told Dipper proudly, before taking a seat down on the huge stump that overlooked the lake.

"It is really nice. Somewhere to go when you want to be left alone. You could really get lost in thought out here." Dipper remarked, as he too took in the remarkable view. In the darkness of the sky, the partial moon and the stars lit up the clearing with an calm glow. Even the lake itself was shining, if only a bit.

"Oh, believe me, Dipper, I've been there. In fact..." Wendy said, her voice trailing off for a moment before returning. "...you're the first person, at least, the first besides my dad, that I've brought here."

Dipper turned in an instant. Suddenly, the situation had completely changed. And judging by Wendy's smile and the overall mood in the air, he could tell it was going in a direction he was completely unprepared for.

"Wait. You mean, not even R-"

Wendy wasn't keen to let him finish. "Not even Robbie."

She was stern while saying those words, but when Wendy began to notice the red glow in Dipper's cheeks, she knew things were in her favor, and her expression shifted quickly.

It was so strange of her to be acting like this. Just a few days ago, Dipper was a good friend; a little kid who she hung out with and did stupid stuff with on a regular basis. Now, he was her size, and somehow, her type. Emotions she had for Dipper had changed so quickly for Wendy, and frankly, it was unsettled her a bit to think about it.

But, always one to live in the moment, she ignored her inner voice and its skepticism, instead patting the space on stump right next to her.

"Why don't you sit down? It's a cool view from here."

Dipper wasn't one to question her, but the nervousness coming out in his voice was very apparent.

"Uh, a-alright." he said, taking a seat right next to Wendy. He almost didn't know how to react when her fingers nudged just a little bit closer to his. Instead, he tried to focus himself on the view, but found himself talking to Wendy anyway.

"This is some luck, isn't it?" Dipper asked, leaving Wendy to pause for a moment before answering.

"Luck? You mean what's happened to you? I guess you could call it that." she replied, her fingers moving ever closer.

"You're...you're really something, Wendy. I've always thought you were pretty..., you know...pretty smart.

"Was that a save or are you trying to make a joke?" she asked through a chuckle, leaving Dipper to only laugh in response despite how obviously forced it was.

"Joke? Nah! I'm not really funny. Or really fun at all. Now that I think about it, maybe Robbie was right. I can be kind of a Captain Buzzkill sometimes..." Dipper stated, some sadness in his voice.

It left him with the wind though, once he felt Wendy's hand finally reach his.

"Hey." she said, her freckled smile practically glowing in the night. "Forget that. As far as I'm concerned, Dipper, you're cool in my book. In fact, you mind if I see your birthmark again?"

"What? Oh, sure." Dipper replied, taking off his hat, and waiting as Wendy nudged ever closer to him. When she parted his hair, their faces were just inches away from each other. Dipper couldn't help but admire her features as she examined the birthmark on his forehead.

"That seals it. Who else do I know that has the Big Dipper on their forehead? That's like a mark from the gods or something. Pretty wicked if you ask me." Wendy said, apparently very sure of herself.

"Hey Wendy."

"Yeah, Dipper?"

"Remember when you said we were both freaks?" he mentioned, before taking his hands and slowly putting them around Wendy's wrists.

Caught by surprise, she nevertheless smiled in response. "Yeah, I remember."

"Well, if you ask me, I don't think you're a freak. I think you're the coolest girl in all of Gravity Falls, and somebody I feel like I could always have fun with, no matter what."

Wendy smile remained, but even Dipper could see the light pink glow growing on her cheeks. He silently thanked Mabel for allowing him to borrow some of her cheesy romance novels.

"You don't have to overdo it, Dipper." she told him, before giving him a quick peck on the cheek. "But I do appreciate it anyway. It's nice to know that there's boys out there who don't have a need to make drama over me."

Dipper put his hand up to his cheek. Clearly, he was getting results. Of course, even in his love-struck state, Wendy's words hit him in an unexpected way. He hadn't told her the whole truth. He had kind of made Robbie look like the villain in a fight he started. And in the end, he had kind of swooped in and taken Wendy from him, once Robbie himself was out of the way.

But it's not like any of that was important, right? Dipper pushed the thoughts out of his head. Wendy didn't need to know any of that. And if she didn't need to know, Dipper didn't need to feel guilty about it. It was simple as that.

All that was left now was for Dipper to figure out if he really, absolutely had a chance with Wendy. It was all or nothing, and he gulped before speaking again with the most confident voice he could muster.

"One more thing, Wendy. Just one more thing."

Wendy crossed her arms, giving him a sly smile as she wondered what he was possibly going to ask next. Wasn't it all obvious to him already?

"Remember when I asked if you liked movies?"

"Yeah, I do." Wendy replied. Dipper took a deep breath.

"Well, I was wondering...what's your opinion on freaks? Do you like them?"

There was a moment of silence, and Dipper wondered if had done something wrong. It was only when he felt Wendy's hands cup his chin, and when he found himself looking straight into her eyes, that his worry began to drain away.

"Surprisingly, Dipper, I do. You could say I've got a soft spot for them. Now if you don't mind, try not to talk for this part."

The moment she kissed him on the lips, Dipper felt like he'd been hit with a double dose of anesthesia. Time stopped, his senses dulled, and everything became unimportant the moment he realized that his crush, the girl who was dating his mortal foe just days ago, was kissing him, and on the lips, no less.

He liked her, she liked him, and this kiss was proof of it all.

In silence, Dipper thanked whatever magical force had given him this wonderful gift of being older. He thanked Mabel's cheesy romance novels, and he thanked his parents for sending him to Gravity Falls in the first place.

But most of all, he thanked Grunkle Stan, for sending him to that miserable basement where he and Mabel found that old projector in the first place.

Maybe irony wasn't such a cruel mistress after all.

* * *

Mabel was the first to notice when they returned. And of course, she was the first to scream it out loud for everyone to hear.

"Oh my gosh! Look! Look!"

Sure enough, Tambry, Thompson, Nate and Lee looked right in Wendy and Dipper's direction. What they saw, was that the two teens had finally returned, their hands intertwined and smiles on both of their faces.

"Huh, nice one, D-Plus." Lee said, his marshmallow burning pretty badly.

"What he said. Looks like all your gazer-beaming paid off." Nate added, before biting into a large chocolate bar.

"Hey, since when did you have chocolate?" Lee asked, reaching for the bar, only to have it snatched back.

"Since I called it. Back off!" Nate warned, but it was clear that this was already becoming another fight between them.

On the other side of the fire, Tambry was already typing furiously on her phone.

"Time to update your relationship status, Wendy. Don't worry. I totally don't mind doing it for you." she said monotone. Wendy was quick to get to her though, clearly not liking the idea.

"Uh, wait a second, Tambry. Maybe it's just a little too early for that!"

While Wendy chased after her, Mabel made her way to her brother, nudging him in the arm to get his attention.

"Dipper!" she semi-whispered with obvious excitement, "As your sister, I must know what happened! In the forest, with me, now!"

"Alright, alright." Dipper replied, following Mabel as the two of them walked into the forest just far enough to be out of sight of the rest of the group. When they were indeed outside the bonfire's proximity, Dipper barely had a moment to breathe before Mabel grabbed him by the arms and practically shouted in his face.

"So did you guys kiss?! Oh my gosh, please tell me you guys kissed, otherwise I might just have to go find a stump to cry on!" Mabel exclaimed, leaving Dipper with only a moment to wonder how to respond.

He was quick about it though, smiling as he did so.

"Yeah. We did. And it was, quite literally, the best thing that's ever happened to me. You were right, Mabel. It is an unforgettable experience."

His sister put her arms to her sides, smiling back at him knowingly. "Told you so. See? This is just another reason why you should listen to me more."

Unfortunately for Mabel, Dipper turned around, lost in his own world and ignoring her as he dictated the experience. However, he failed to notice that behind him, his sister was beginning to change.

"I mean, Gravity Falls has a ton of mysterious secrets, and we've encountered legitimate magical entities, but that kiss..." Dipper continued, all while his body shrank downwards and his clothing completely shifted. So enamored with the memory of the kiss, Dipper didn't even notice the process of transformation back into a pre-teen, even after it was complete.

"...I don't think I could classify it if I spent my whole life trying." he finished, before turning around to realize his sister had reverted into her younger form. Looking down at himself, he spotted his usual shirt and vest, realizing he'd done exactly the same.

"Go figure, I get to be Mini-Mabel again! What a jip!" she exclaimed, as Dipper's anxiety sky-rocketed.

"No, no, no! Not yet! It can't have already been eight hours! I need to stay a teenager! I can't be with Wendy unless I'm a teenager!"

"You said it, brother. What's the point of even having these younger bodies in the first place? They're so small and useless." Mabel added, only to hear a response from an unexpected voice.

"Oh, I think you'll find that there's a lot of good to come from being small, pipsqueaks! At least, good for me!" announced none other than Robbie, who emerged from the dark forest behind them and snatched both Dipper and Mabel up by the back of their vest and sweater respectively.

"Hey! Let us go, you big jerk!" Mabel complained, struggling wildly, but unable to escape in her reduced form.

"What are you, some stalker? Did you follow us here!?" Dipper asked, receiving an obviously flustered answer from the black-haired teen.

"No! I just happened to be strolling through the woods, and I just happened to find the perfect opportunity for payback. You shoulda seen this coming, Dipper, the minute you stole my girlfriend from me!"

"I didn't steal anyone, Robbie!" Dipper protested, his sister right behind him. A hint of guilt hit him when he said that sentence, but in his anger, Dipper managed to ignore it.

"Yeah, it's not his fault you're such a stupid, pompous, no-brain, bug-eating jerk!"

"Shut it!" Robbie commanded, tightening his grip on the twins.

"I'm running things now. And I think it's time to show everyone just who your stupid "older siblings" really are!" he stated, a nasty smile forming on his face.

Robbie began to laugh, clearly ecstatic over his new position of power. "Look's like playtime's over, twerps! It's time for the real grown-ups to run the show..."

Robbie made a particular effort to sneer right into Dipper's face, enunciating his words with all the rudeness of an immature teen. "And it's time for Wendy to see just how "sweet" and 'honest" you really are!

* * *

**I really loved writing the scene with Wendy and Dipper in the middle of this, especially that "freaks" line. It'll probably end up being the best scene in the whole story.**

**I know it seems Dipper is getting his way a lot in this story, but just wait. Stay tuned for the next exciting chapter!**


	6. Part 6

**A new chapter, and in just a day? Am I crazy? No, I'm just trying to make up for lost time. **

**Nah, this story is just too much fun. Anyway, some big developments coming in this chapter. Read, review and enjoy.**

* * *

It seemed that in their smaller, pre-teen bodies, no amount of struggling could free Mabel and Dipper from Robbie's grip. To struggle at all just ended up seeming useless, but nevertheless, the twins were as frantic as a pair of jackrabbits.

Carrying the two as easily as one might carry marionettes, Robbie seemed to be relishing is sudden triumph just a little bit too much. A good minute passed as Dipper and Mabel continued to struggle, but their work was in vain, and shock came upon both their faces as Robbie unveiled them to the others still at the bonfire.

"Hey guys! Check out what I found in the forest. Two little chipmunks!" he announced with an obnoxious laugh. Unfortunately for Robbie, he did not receive laughter in return, especially since Mabel and Dipper were still making enough of a scene with their continuous scrambling.

"Let us go already! I'm don't want to be a Muppet!" Mabel complained, still flailing around but making no progress in actually escaping Robbie's grip.

"Put them down, Robbie." said Wendy, in a suddenly stern and serious voice. "Right now."

Dropping both twins out of his grasp, he laughed as they both landed on their bottoms. Mabel was particularly vocal about this careless act of his.

"Hey! What do you think we are, toys?"

Robbie simply laughed in response, clearly enjoying himself. "She said to put you down. And I did. I put you down."

If given the chance, Robbie might have gone on, but a hot marshmallow hitting him in the forehead made him think otherwise. Suddenly, the front of his black hair became singed, if only a bit, and Robbie was frantic in getting the smoking treat out of his precious hair. Unfortunately for him the grease in his unkempt follicles only made the fire worse. Finally, he managed to take the burning marshmallow out and throw it aside, patting his hair down right once it was gone.

"Hey! What it with those things, will ya?" Robbie practically yelled. The thrower of the marshmallow, Wendy, was clearly not at all amused with his antics.

"That's not what I meant when I said to put them down. I think you should leave, Robbie."

Next to her, Nate and Lee were already inciting rumors.

"I'm sensing some drama, coming." Lee said through a grin.

"I don't know. You think Dr. Fun Times could take Robbie in a fight? His older brother probably could." Nate added within earshot of Robbie, who realized that the epidemic of lies that was affecting Wendy was indeed affecting everyone.

"Ugh, you too, Nate? Do you all believe this dumb lie of theirs?" Robbie said in clear annoyance, gesturing to the Pines twins as he did so.

"Look, I got something crazy to say, but you guys gotta believe me." Robbie began. On the log she was sitting on, Wendy sighed in obvious annoyance and looked away. Tambry continued to text on her phone, and the rest of the boys proceeded to half-listen.

The Pines Twins themselves couldn't help but feel a pang of fear as Robbie prepared to try and oust them. After all, rarely did Robbie go to such drastic lengths just to try undermining them.

"You remember Dipper and Mabel Plus? You know, the "older twins?"

"Dipper Plus is totally dating Wendy now." Tambry said, leaving Wendy simply put her hand to her face in frustration. It was nice to have another girl in her group of friends, but sometimes Wendy wondered if Tambry just had some sort of compulsion to tell anyone she could talk everything she knew, secrets included.

"What? Since when was this?" Robbie exclaimed, his mindset completely changing for a moment. He glared down at Dipper, but soon realized there were more important things for him to be aggravated about right now.

"Ugh, never mind that." Robbie said, trying to ignore the idea of Dipper and Wendy dating. " You guys have to know; these two ARE Mabel and Dipper Plus! These pipsqueaks are like werewolves or something! But instead of turning into monsters, they turn into teenagers!"

There was a long pause as group registered exactly what Robbie had said to them. Even the normally distracted Tambry put down her phone and gave him a strange look. Only Wendy seemed completely disinterested, her arms crossed as she waited diligently for the moment Robbie would give up and just leave.

Finally, Nate was the first one to speak up and break the silence, followed shortly by Lee.

"So...are you being serious? You sure you've haven't been guzzling down on one too many of those energy drinks, Robbie?"

"Yeah, just cause we saw ghosts doesn't mean that we're going to believe in "were-teens" or whatever. I mean, how dumb do you think we are?" the blonde-haired teen chimed in.

"The better question is, how dumb do you think he is? Either way, nice try, Robbie, but I'm not buying it." Nate added with a snicker.

Tambry seemed ready to join the bandwagon as well, typing furiously on her phone as she spoke. "Status Update: Robbie V is totally insane. DO NOT date under any circumstances..."

"Hey! Don't write stuff like that about me!" Robbie said in sudden anger, and without warning, he actually had the audacity to run over and actially take Tambry's phone away from her. Reading the status she had just wrote, and not in his right state of mind, Robbie proceeded to throw the phone as hard as he could. Tambry stood motionless, having never had her phone taken away from her by anyone, not even by her parents.

She watched silently as it landed hard against the bark of a tree, exploding violently and breaking into a mass of parts and pieces.

It was no surprise that everyone was shocked at this sudden development. Even Wendy couldn't look away. But of all people, it was obviously Tambry herself who had been hit the hardest. Slowly, she reached for her hair as a look of utter horror formed on her face. She scrambled over to the remnants of her phone, picking up the pieces in her hand, trying to reassemble them, but failing hopelessly.

"No. I can't lose this. I need it. I need my phone more than anything!" she pleaded, tears welling in her eyes as Wendy came over to comfort her. The red-head was quick to turn to Robbie though, glaring at him with unusual intensity.

"Are you happy now, jerk? Do you feel satisfied now?" she barked at him, making Robbie want to reach for his own hair and rip out, unable to understand why Wendy was falling into this charade.

"This is...this is ridiculous! I...I wouldn't have done that if you guys just believed me! I'm telling you, they're the teenagers you've been hanging with! Dipper is fooling you, Wendy, but you defend him so much that it's like your in league with him!" he accused her, but it was obvious in his tone of voice that his attempts to discredit Dipper and Mabel were practically hopeless.

Dipper took his chance to defend himself and his sister in this moment. Robbie was becoming a serious annoyance, and teenager or not, it was time for him to man up.

"Give it up, Robbie." he began, his voice confident as he stood up in front of everyone. "Maybe if you 'd try listening to someone else for once, then I'd have been able to tell you that our siblings went to some party they got invited to with our Grunkle Stan. We came to take their places because they left so abruptly." Dipper informed him, a good amount of confidence in his voice.

Of course, Dipper was lying, and Mabel, Wendy and Robbie all knew that. But in this case, lying wasn't hurting anyone.

Coincidentally though, it did make Wendy wonder if having an older brother was the only thing Dipper had been lying about. She would have thought about the notion more, if not for her intense anger for Robbie, which clouded her thoughts significantly.

"You little liar! You and your sister might think you can fool everyone else, but you can't fool me! Don't you realize what you've cost me? You took Wendy away from me!" Robbie said in anguish, grabbing Dipper by the collar so he could say this to him face-to-face. Much to Dipper's surprise, he could see the remnants of Robbie's "eye-paint for men" blurring just a bit on the teen's gaunt face. If Dipper didn't know better, he would have thought that Robbie was on the verge of crying.

He may have very well hit Dipper though, if not for Wendy, who put on a surprisingly calm expression as she put a firm hand on Robbie's shoulder. On some level, she understood what kind of pain he was going through. After all, she'd put eight guys before him through the same thing.

"No. You did that to yourself, Robbie. Now if you care about even being so much as friends with me, then you'll put Dipper down, and you'll leave us all alone." she stated, her tone of voice very serious.

For a moment, it seemed Robbie might say something else in protest. But when he truly looked around him, and saw Lee and Nate shaking their heads, Tambry crying over her phone with Thompson right beside her, and that stone-cold expression on Wendy's face, he began to realize that perhaps all of this wasn't worth it. Taking one last glance at Dipper, Robbie let Dipper go, put his head down, and seemed ready to give up.

"Fine. I'll let you get back to all the lies you've been told. See you on the flipside, losers." Robbie told everyone in a low voice, kicking aside leaves in his path before disappearing into the dark forest ahead. Another pang of guilt hit Dipper in the chest when Robbie mentioned his lies, and this time, it seemed a little bit harder to ignore.

Unknown to him, of course, was the fact that Wendy, even with her anger towards him, continued to dwell on Robbie's words, if only a little bit. She glanced at Dipper, and he could only offer a nervous sort of smile in return. Shaking off her suspicious feeling, she simply smiled back.

Meanwhile, Tambry was still sniffling over her phone. As she held the pieces of her precious device in her hands, Thompson realized something.

"Hey, Tambry. Look." he said, showing her that in between his chubby fingers was her SIM card, which of course held all her contacts and personal information.

"So what? What good is that if I don't have a phone?" she replied, half-crying.

Thompson put on his best, most comforting smile. "Cheer up. My mom works for some big phone company. She gets all these free promotional phones all the time. I think we have your model somewhere in my basement. I can get it for you tonight, and you can have your phone in your hands again."

Though Thompson himself didn't immediately realize it, his words had in fact had a huge impact on Tambry's psyche. Her eyes widened as she processed what she had just said in her head. Her response was quick and almost intrusive.

"Are you messing with me, or is that really true?"

Thompson seemed taken aback, but nevertheless answered honestly. "What, no. It's totally true. I just might have to sneak it out under my mom's nose thou-"

Thompson might have finished his sentence, but as the rest of the group saw, he was cut off when Tambry impulsively locked her lips with his. Their kiss lasted a good five seconds, and by the third second, a mechanical snapping noise could be heard as Nate took a picture of the moment on his phone. When she finally let go, Nate and Lee were grinning with satisfaction as they looked at the scene now immortalized on their phone.

"I knew it. I knew she liked him. You know you owe me ten bucks, now, right?" Nate said to his blonde-haired friend, who surprisingly just nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. I just can't wait till this goes online." Lee replied with a notable snicker. Tambry however, seemed relatively unfazed.

"Like it even matters. Go ahead and upload it for all I care. But when you do, just remember how many of my friends are going to see it. And then remember how many potential girlfriends you guys are going to lose in that instant." Tambry threatened, taking Thompson's hand in hers as she did so. From the looks on Nate and Lee's face, and the fact Nate responded by flipping his phone closed and putting it away, it seemed that her words had indeed had some effect.

"...you should break your phone more often." Thompson mumbled, his face glowing pink just a bit.

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing." the portly teen replied, dismissing Tambry's question completely.

"Well, there's something else I didn't know." Wendy said, before yawning loudly as sleepiness started to come over her. "I'm getting pretty tired though. Don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to head home. I need to crash before I start sleepwalking."

Wendy's yawning seemed to be contagious, as Mabel soon followed suit. "Maybe we should be getting back to the shack too, Dipper."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Dipper agreed. "It was nice seeing all of you."

Mabel pulled him by the vest, clearly wanting to leave. He put his finger up to stop her though, still having just one more thing to say.

"And just before I forget, my brother wanted me to say something to you, Wendy."

Dipper's cheeks went a bit red as his pre-teen mind stringed together the words he was about to say.

"He told me...to tell you...that he had...a really nice time tonight. So...thank you for that." Dipper practically croaked, causing Wendy to chuckle just a little bit.

"Well, you can tell him, that I had a good time too. I'll be looking forward to seeing him again." she said to the younger boy, winking as she did so.

Dipper made a huge grin, while his sister giggled behind him.

"Oh, great! He totally does too! And he'll be back, guys! So stay tuned, until then!" Dipper declared, as Mabel took to dragging him away into the forest and towards the path that lead back into town.

"Come along, loverboy." Mabel exclaimed once they were out of earshot.

The crazy things boys did for love. Mabel could only wonder how far her brother was really willing to go...

* * *

It was afternoon in the Mystery Shack. A day had passed since the events at the bonfire last night. Busy staring up at the ceiling and bored out of her mind, Wendy couldn't help but replay the events of last night in her mind.

So many lies had been told, so much drama had occurred, that in truth, it was quite painful to think about. But it wasn't Robbie or her anger towards him that she was really concerned over.

It was Dipper who was mostly on her mind. Or Dipper Plus, she might say, as she had gotten to know him better. The memory of that wonderful kiss hadn't left her lips, and on top of that, she was quite confused with her own feelings for the boy.

Because unfortunately, that was the weird part, and it was strange for Wendy just be thinking about it in the first place.

Dipper wasn't really a teenager. He was a twelve-year old boy who could pretend to be a teenager taller than Wendy and the same age as her, albeit for limited periods of time. Just a couple of days ago, she thought of Dipper as not much more than a friend; someone to hang out with and truly be herself around. Suddenly, now he was boyfriend-material. And honestly, Wendy couldn't help but feel conflicted over that fact.

After all, she had technically had nine failed relationships so far. Who's to say Dipper wouldn't eventually become the tenth? There was no real guarantee that he'd be the exception. Unless of course, Wendy could prove, without a doubt, that he was the honest, kind and sweet boy that she thought him to be. The same boy she met when he first arrived at Gravity Falls. Because if he really wasn't the guy Wendy felt like she was falling for, then it only made sense to cut him out before he ended up hurting her, or worse, she ended up hurting him.

Then, it hit her. The solution came quickly, and Wendy suddenly formed a plan in her mind. Getting up from her chair, she stealthily made her way outside the gift shop, listening in for Grunkle Stan. In the distance, she could hear his chainsaw snore, and smiling to herself, she made her way into the off-limits security room.

Surprisingly, it was unlocked. Unknown to Wendy, Grunkle Stan had a great number of dark secrets, and the only "secret" things in the security room where tapes containing recordings of whatever the camera caught outside the perimeter of the Mystery Shack in the last few days. Luckily, those were exactly what Wendy was looking for. Snatching up the tape from just a couple of days ago, Wendy's eyes scanned it for a moment, before looking up at the various blank screens situated around the room.

Slipping the tape into the video slot, she took a seat and started watching.

* * *

Having been in extremely high spirits for the last day, Dipper was beyond excited when he went looking for Wendy. Having touched the projector again and returned to his teenage form, he planned on taking advantage of Stan's sudden nap and maybe do something fun with Wendy again.

And by fun, that might mean another kiss, or two, or three. Clearly, his teenage mind had different priorities.

Not finding Wendy in her usual seat in the gift shop, Dipper doubled back, scratching his head as he wondered where she could possibly be.

Finally, he spotted light and heard noises coming from the security room, which had its door ajar. Grunkle Stan had made it clear to everyone that the security room was off-limits, but Dipper's rebellious state of mind thought otherwise. Pushing the door open, he spotted Wendy within, his voice becoming ecstatic.

"Wendy! I didn't think I'd find you in here. What's up?"

He got no response. At least, not from her.

_"Oh, nothing really. I just happened to be taking a walk, and you know, I couldn't help but notice how hard you're taking this whole Wendy thing." _

He winced. That was him talking. And on-screen, that was him taunting Robbie in the back of the Mystery Shack, the day Wendy broke up with him.

Dipper's body froze, and his heart began to pound in his chest. He struggled to say something, anything, but Wendy remained silent as the video, unfortunately, continued.

_"You know what? How about we do this, Robbie? I don't need anybody to fight for me this time!"_

Every sentence coming out of his mouth hit deep. Dipper almost couldn't breathe. As the seconds ticked by, and Wendy watched more and more, Dipper just waited painfully for the video to finally end.

_"Jeez, all I was doing was minding my own business, taking out the trash, and I get a black eye for it. Thanks a lot, Robbie..."_

It was after that statement that Wendy had finally seen enough. Stopping the video, she turned around in her chair, her expression showing so much pain and hurt that Dipper couldn't look her straight in the eyes.

"What is this, Dipper?" she said. Her voice was cracking.

"Please tell me that isn't you. Please, tell me that it's some clone, or some body-snatcher, or some crazy shape-shifting monster. Because you wouldn't lie to me like that, right? You wouldn't fight over me like I was some trophy, right?"

The tears were very clear in Wendy's eyes. Dipper had lied to her, he had fought over her, and now, these things were finally coming to light. The teen gulped. It seemed like Mabel had unfortunately been right the whole time. This was just like one of those soap operas. And now, Dipper had to face the consequences.

He gulped.

So much for the his triumphs. This was the end.

* * *

**No worries! It's not the end for Dipper just yet, even though he's in a bad place. There's just one final chapter left in this story, and then we'll see the end.**

**Will Dipper win back the love of his life? Will Wendy ever forgive Robbie? These questions and more will be answered and resolved in the next and final chapter of Grow Up or Go Home!**


	7. Part 7

**Here we are, willing readers! The final chapter of the story I started months ago, the story of Dipper and Mabel's time as teens, and Dipper's quest for Wendy's love. I do hope you've enjoyed reading it so far. And so, I present you with the final chapter of one of my longest contributions to the Gravity Falls fandom! Enjoy, as it is quite long!**

* * *

Time seemed to be moving like molasses, as Dipper wondered what he could possibly say, what he could possibly come up with, in order to escape from this very sensitive and frightening situation.

Here he was, revealed to be a liar to the very girl he felt his heart belonged to. No longer was there a smile present on Wendy's freckled face. Instead, tears welled in her eyes, and she seemed strained enough in the action of just looking back at Dipper.

"Wendy, I can explain." Dipper said, quite abruptly. Surprisingly, Wendy crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, rather than just cutting him off.

"I'll give you one chance. Go ahead."

Her voice was very serious, and Dipper gulped, wondering again to himself how he planned on getting out of this one. Nevertheless, all her could really do was suck it up and try anyway.

"Well, here's the deal." he began, rubbing the back of his head and trying to sound as confident as possible. "I...I can't remember what happened back there. The projector..."

Dipper seemed to enamored with his own lie to notice Wendy's expression changing in a very negative way. "...the projector's effects must have given me short-term amnesia. In fact, it's all coming back to me, right n-"

The were-teen didn't have a chance to finish. Instead, there was an audible slap as Wendy got him right across the cheek. The slap itself didn't hurt that much, but of course there was a huge emotional punch to it that hit Dipper right where it really hurt.

"You liar! I can't believe you, Dipper! I told you I hated being fought over! You know I hate being lied to! But you go ahead and do this stuff anyway! Does being a good friend mean anything to you?!" Wendy practically screamed, so loud that Dipper was afraid it might even wake up Grunkle Stan. He cowered, unable to form a good response.

"But I...I..."

"You what, Dipper?" Wendy asked in a frustrated tone of voice.

Dipper put his head down, responding to her with shame in his tone.

"I never wanted to just be your friend, Wendy."

There was a light sniffling sound as Wendy sucked in some of her tears. Dipper couldn't bear to look at her. The pain of hearing the sound of her voice, and her shaken physical state, was punishment enough for him.

"Of course you didn't. Because that's what boys do. They think only of themselves! You know, I thought you were different, Dipper. But now I can see that this teenage thing has just messed you up. I thought this whole time, you were better than Robbie." she stated between obvious tears. Even if Dipper wanted to get a response from her, he didn't have the courage to say a word in the first place. Nevertheless, he considered covering his ears, not wanting to hear the next sentence that came out of Wendy's mouth.

"But it looks like I was wrong. You and Robbie are one and the same."

Dipper felt like melting into a puddle upon hearing those words. He felt like turning invisible and never reappearing. Being compared to Robbie, to his true nemesis next to Gideon himself, now that was painful.

Dipper didn't even look up as Wendy passed him, shutting the door loudly as she left. His emotions caught up in torrent, he didn't know if he should be crying or screaming, or both. Either way, he chose to remain silent, and relatively expressionless.

What did he do wrong? He could only wonder. In the last few days Dipper had been a teenager, he thought nothing could go wrong. After all, he was under the impression that the majority of his problems stemmed from being a kid. Wendy wouldn't have returned his emotions if he was still a twelve-year old kid. She was too old for him, and Dipper knew that, no matter how many times he had tried to ignore it.

But at least when he was a kid, they'd had some great times. At least when he was a kid, she never looked at him the same way she sometimes looked at Robbie; with annoyance and frustration. Now he had gone and screwed it all up. Now he was the Robbie in Wendy's life. Just thinking about that notion made Dipper's stomach turn.

And if Dipper didn't do something about it soon, things would stay that way. Pulling himself out of his rut, and shaking his head to get into focus, he realized their was only one person who could truly help him in his time of need.

And where could he find her? In the room Dipper shared with her, of course.

* * *

"So I was right. Wendy did end up finding out, just like in one of those soap operas." Mabel said, looking down at her feet as she sat on her bed. She still hadn't completely gotten used to the fact that she could really dangle her legs over her bedside anymore.

Dipper flipped through the journal aimlessly, the sadness of the situation very clear in his expression. "Wendy's probably never going to talk to me again. I screwed up really bad this time, Mabel."

"But I was right." she replied, smiling through her braceless teeth. Dipper simply frowned in response.

"This isn't funny! I'm being serious here! You know, if Wendy stops being friends with me, there's a good chance that the unwanted associations could cause her to stop being friends with you too!"

Mabel put a finger to a mouth, shaking her head. "No way. Wendy likes me too much to just get rid of me like that. You're the one in the sinking boat right now, not me."

Dipper was tired of waiting, and he grabbed his sister by the arms, shaking her frantically in desperation. "Fine, whatever! All the more reason, why you have to help me, Mabel! Without you, I have zero chance! You're a girl, so you must know how they really think!"

"Okay, okay, just bring it down a notch, Dipper. I'll help you." Mabel asked, standing up from the bed and allowing her thought process to take over. Thinking back on every dumb soap opera she'd caught Stan watching, every cheesy romance novel she'd read, it took her a solid five minutes before a solution came to mind.

"I know!" she announced, sounding very sure of yourself. "Why don't you just make her a nice card? Girls love stuff like that!"

Dipper hit himself in the forehead, groaning loudly as he did so. Instead of answering Mabel, he flipped through the journal. Not expecting to find an answer, he stopped on a random page showing a detailed sketch of a strange-looking ring.

"I give up." he declared, putting his face into his hands.

"Cheer up, Dipper. Things will get better. There are other girls out there besides Wendy. Maybe you could date Candy! Or Grenda!" Mabel offered. Dipper simply glared at her, wondering how she could possibly think that those were even remotely comforting words.

But before had a chance to say much to his sister, he could feel the momentary sensation of electricity as his entire body shifted. His limbs shrank, his clothes changed color and consistency, and when it was all over, he was a regular-sized, pre-teen Dipper Pines again.

Next to him, Mabel had undergone the transformation as well. She looked down on her sweater in obvious disappointment.

"Awww, no fair! It's like our time as were-teens keeps getting shorter and shorter!" Mabel complained, and with good reason. Dipper had noticed it too. Their time as teenagers was getting progressively shorter.

"There's probably a reason to that, Mabel." he said, about to flip the pages of the journal to find information on magical office equipment. "The magical energies in the projector might just be running out."

"It can't run out! I was just getting used to being an awesome teen!" Mabel whined, but something caught Dipper's eye before he could respond.

Inside the journal, on the page he was looking at, hand-written text from one of the journal's mysterious authors couldn't help catch his eye.

He began to read the short passage, which described something more akin to a fairy tale as opposed to something that had actually happened. Knowing how Gravity Falls was, Dipper assumed it was probably true.

* * *

_I once thought to myself: if I could only get this ring, if I could only access the power it granted, then I could have everything._

_With the ring, all of my worries would be over. With the power of the honor-bound djinn inside it, all of my wildest dreams would come true. Elizabeth would finally be mine._

_After long weeks of searching, I eventually found the ring, among the refuse in the forest surrounding Gravity Falls. And the djinn inside did indeed grant me my wishes. But what I didn't know, was that the wishes of the djinn were nothing more than temporary happiness._

_The magic he could provide did not last forever. My love Elizabeth was only mine for a small period time, and before I knew it, she was gone. Left empty-handed, and robbed of my gifts, I became angry for a number of years. Eventually, I came to my senses, and I realized that depending on the djinn in the first place; that was my greatest mistake._

_Because if there was a lesson to be learned, it was that all the magic, all the mysterious powers in the world; these things cannot solve our issues for us. No, we must solve them ourselves. We must take charge, and use our innate knowledge of who we are to obtain our goals._

_If only I had known of this. Maybe if I did, Elizabeth would still be in my life._

* * *

Dipper glossed over the reading again. At the end of it, the lettering was partially smudged. Nevertheless, the lesson was clear enough. He shut the journal.

"I don't think we need the projector, Mabel." he suddenly stated.

His sister did a double take."Uh, excuse me? Of course we need it! What are you saying, Dipper?"

He sudden outburst was surprisingly convincing. Maybe she had a point, he thought. Putting the journal aside, Dipper quickly decided that perhaps that advice wasn't good for the situation at hand.

"Well, I guess a few more days as teens wouldn't hurt. If I'm going to apologize to Wendy, I'd probably be better off doing it as a teen." he remarked, as Mabel patted him on the back, smiling through her now brace-covered teeth.

"That's the spirit, Dipper. First thing tomorrow morning, we're back to teenagers!" she declared triumphantly before jumping back into her bed.

"Yeah." Dipper replied, pulling his covers over him. "And hopefully by then Wendy will have calmed down a little bit."

"I hope so, Dipper. Tonight though, let's just enjoy being kids again. I think I was beginning to miss all the extra space in my bed." Mabel replied, yawning loudly after she did so.

Tomorrow would be better, Dipper thought.

Once he was a teenager again, he could approach Wendy, apologize, and put everything back into his control.

* * *

Though Dipper's dreams, which of course all involved Wendy, had been quite pleasant, the sensation of being violently shaken was not at all an attractive way of being woken up.

When he came to, he was greeted by the face of his sister, who looked like she'd been hit by a hurricane. Her hair was a mess, and Mabel seemed to have a frantic look in her eyes when she realized Dipper was finally waking up.

"You gotta wake up, okay? We have a serious problem on our hands!" she announced, clearly out of it.

"What, what is it?" Dipper said through a yawn, shaking his head as his vision readjusted to his surroundings.

"The projector! It's gone!"

Dipper's eyes opened in an instant. He turned towards Mabel, and suddenly shock and fear wrapped around him like a pair of deadly boa constrictors.

"What!?"

* * *

Dipper ran back upstairs, and though he checked the closets, every nook and cranny, and even the off-limits security room, he came up with nothing. Ready to rip his hair out, he realized Mabel was in the same boat. Watching her emerge from the basement, he could see she was holding onto a flashlight so tightly that the plastic was practically cracking in her hands.

"We need to find that projector! There's still so much I need to do as a teen!" Mabel commanded, but this only seemed to make her brother more frustrated.

"I know! I know! But what do you expect me to do? I looked everywhere, but I couldn't find it anywhere in the Shack!" he replied, breathing heavily. So enamored were the twins in their situation, that they didn't notice Grunkle Stan standing behind them until he finally decided it was time to speak up.

"Projector? You mean that old piece of junk in the basement? It's gone, kids. I dropped it off in the junkyard, where it belongs." Stan Pines declared with a degree of pride in his voice, much to the twins horror.

"You what!?" Mabel and Dipper said in unison. Just then, the door to the Mystery Shack gift shop opened as someone entered. Half-expecting it to be Wendy coming in early for her shift, Dipper and Mabel instead spotted Soos, who was still holding his car keys as he closed the door behind him.

"Oh, hey dudes!" Soos exclaimed. He didn't get to say much else.

"Soos, get back into that car! We're off to the junkyard!" Mabel commanded, before running right past him and out the door.

"What do you kids need that old projector for? It's useless!" Grunkle Stan asked, but Dipper was too preoccupied with hope to really listen.

"No time to explain now, Grunkle Stan. I've got a relationship to save. Come on, Soos!" Dipper stated, running through the gift shop door and outside towards Soos's parked car, with Soos right behind him.

And so, Grunkle Stan was left all by himself, and he watched as Soos took off with the kids. Dipper's words in particular made him think. But in the end, he simply scratched the back of his head, wondering why Dipper needed to be in such a hurry.

"Ugh, that kid is growing up too fast." he said in his trademark, gravelly tone of voice. "He really needs to learn to take life one year at a time. Like me! Haha!"

Stan's expression sank as he realized the flatness of his joke. "Oh, who am I kidding? My life sucks."

* * *

Every obstacle seemed like a blur, as Dipper and Mabel made their way through the veritable maze that was the Gravity Falls Junkyard.

As Soos waited by the car, the twins ran as fast as they could, looking all over for any sign of their precious projector. Dipper in particular seemed more concerned than Mabel.

After all, if he didn't get the machine back, then any chance of him truly being with Wendy was as good as gone.

Finally, Dipper found what he was looking for. He could see the projector just ahead, though it had fallen over and was partially buried in refuse. As he willed himself to go faster, despite his smaller body, he could feel hope growing in his heart.

But all that hope was gone the instant he watched the projector fly up straight into the air as a magnetized bar picked it up, along with dozens of other discarded devices.

"No..." he said, watching as the bar lifted everything up, before bringing it over a large and imposing compactor. There was a moment of eerie silence before the junk and projector attached to the bar dropped into the compactor. Above inside crane that the magnetized bar was operating through, someone cackled as they hit the switch the crush all of this new junk.

"Whoopie, I do love me this here part-time job! Crushing hopes and dreams for a living!" Old Man McGucket yelled as the compactor started up, and the huge crushers began pushing on everything in between them.

Mabel arrived behind Dipper just in time to see the projector cracking into hundreds of pieces, as thousands upon thousands of pounds of pressure reduced it to almost nothing. Her mouth open in a mixture of shock and sadness, Dipper could put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her. He wiped a tear away, as he watched the answer to his problems become nothing more than a tiny, useless cube of metal and junk.

"Well, there goes our one and only chance of being teenagers." Mabel croaked, siting down and putting her head in her arms. Beside her, Dipper couldn't help but think about the words he had read in the journal again. Maybe that advice was appropriate for this situation. Sitting down next to his sister, suddenly he knew exactly what to say.

"Hey, don't think of it that way. In another year, we'll be teens permanently." Dipper said, hoping that thought would comfort her enough.

Mabel turned towards him, still making a frown as she responded with a mix of sarcasm and anger. "Oh great. We get to wait a whole year. How exciting! A year I have to wait to do all the cool stuff I wanted to do as a teen."

Dipper absorbed her words for a moment. Finally, the message of the journal's mysterious writer made complete sense to him.

"You know, I think this for the better, Mabel. As crazy as it sounds, this is the best thing that could possibly happen."

Mabel sniffled, before raising her voice at her brother. "Are you out of your mind, Dipper?! How could this possibly be a good thing?"

"Just think about it." Dipper began, sounding so sure of himself. "We did so much in the last few days, simply because we thought we were better off as teenagers than we were as kids. But that couldn't have been farther from the truth. We don't need the projector to make our lives better. We can do that by ourselves."

Thinking for a moment about what Dipper was saying, Mabel seemed to smile, if only a little bit. His words did made some sense. After all, being back in her regular body for a day made her remember how much she was actually missing it.

"Of course, I don't know if I'll be so lucky. I think things between me and Wendy are pretty much over." Dipper reminded himself, sighing heavily.

"But you shouldn't let being a kid stop you from doing all that cool stuff, Mabel. You always tell me..."

Dipper put a finger on the middle of Mabel's sweater. "...it's what's in here that really counts."

She looked back at her twin brother, and suddenly remembered why they were inseparable in the first place.

"Thanks, Dipper." Mabel said, smiling sweetly at him before the two shared a hug. Of course, as he hugged back, he couldn't help but feel downtrodden. After all, he didn't have much to look forward to with Wendy, once they got back to the Mystery Shack.

"Anytime, Mabel." he said, trying to sound as happy as he could. "Anytime."

* * *

The car ride was supposed to be relatively quick, but Dipper still found time to stare outside at the passing forest while Soos drove. Every couple of trees, he could have sworn he saw Wendy waiting. He sighed to himself again. Why did everything have to end up being so complicated?

"Hey, Dipper." Soos said as he drove, interrupting the boy's train of thought. "What ever happened to the older twins? You know, Dipper and Mabel Plus?"

"Oh, they went off to college." Mabel quickly interjected. "Turns out they're prodigies and they both got themselves accepted into Harvard at the age of fifteen. You probably won't see them ever again."

Of course, Mabel's causal way of explaining their older "siblings" absence certainly caught Dipper by surprise, but he went with it anyway.

"What she said." Dipper added, before turning back into the window.

"Huh." Soos said, as they turned in to the parking lot of the Mystery Shack. "Oh, well. If you ask me, your older bro was kind of a jerk, Dipper. Not at all the cool dude you are."

Dipper smiled before opening the car door. "You're probably right. Thanks, Soos."

The boy was in no rush to get out of the car. Because as Soos and Mabel made their way into the Mystery Shack, Dipper waited. Up ahead, sitting on the steps leading into the gift shop, was none other than Wendy, who was busy checking her phone.

Taking a deep breath, Dipper got of the car, closed the door behind him, and summoned forth all of his remaining courage as he approached Wendy. For a good thirty seconds, she continued scrolling through her phone as Dipper tried to figure out what to say.

Finally, he thought something simple would suffice.

"Um, hey."

Wendy didn't look up.

"I guess I don't deserve the title of freak anymore, huh?"

That seemed to get her attention. Wendy pulled her phone away from her face, putting on a somewhat indifferent expression as Dipper continued.

"Do you mind if I take a seat?" he asked. Wendy seemed to think about it for a moment, before moving aside just a bit.

"Go ahead." she said, emotion noticeably lacking in her tone of voice.

Proceeding to sit down, Dipper took off his hat, holding it in his lap. Taking another deep breath, he turned and looked straight at Wendy. Teenager or not, he was going to do this.

"I have a lot to apologize for." he began, in as sad and apologetic of a voice he could muster.

"You're telling me." Wendy replied somewhat sarcastically. "I've forgiven Robbie, but I'm still not sure if I can forgive you."

Dipper gulped. She forgave him? Robbie must have come up with some apology to get her back as a friend. It seemed Dipper would just have to come up with a better one. Knowing Robbie's intelligence, that wouldn't be too hard.

"I'm sorry, Wendy. I may have been a teenager, but all I really ended up being was a lying jerk." Dipper explained, sadness written all over his face as he bled his heart out to her.

"You're just so cool, you know. I'm just a dumb kid. A dumb kid who really, really likes you, but a dumb kid nonetheless."

Slowly but surely, Wendy absorbed Dipper's words. There was indeed something about him in his younger form that made her a little more comfortable. After the drama around him being "Dipper Plus", seeing Dipper like this, as he should be, was a welcome relief for the redhead.

"You don't have any reason to go out with me ever again, by the way. The projector was pretty much obliterated in the junkyard. And with it, my chances at being a teenager again, and at being with you." Dipper said, sighing deeply after the last statement. He didn't know how Wendy would respond. In fact, he almost didn't want her to respond.

Standing up, Dipper felt like he had just about said enough. But as he attempted to walk away, a hand grabbed onto his. Wendy stopped him, and by the tone of her voice, she sounded quite serious.

"Hold on just a minute there. You got a few things wrong."

Before he could say much in his defense, Dipper was quickly brought back down into his seat. Clearly surprised by this change in Wendy's behavior, he figured out that just sitting down and listening to her was probably the best course of action.

"If you really think the only reason I liked you was because you were a teenager, then man, Dipper, you're not as smart as I thought." Wendy said quite casually, leaving Dipper to trip over his next words.

"But I thought...I thought that..." he croaked, but he couldn't get enough words out before Wendy beat him to it.

"Do you know how many teenagers there are in Gravity Falls? You think I'd kiss just any of them simply because of the fact that they're teenagers?"

Dipper thought about that for a second. "No, of course not."

Surprisingly, Wendy put her finger on Dipper's chest, smiling as she did so. "Hasn't your sister said this before? It's what's in here that counts. Sure, being a teen made things easier, but it's not Dipper Plus that I really liked..."

Dipper held his breath as he realized what Wendy was about to say.

"...it's Dipper. The short, smart and always cool Dipper. We're both freaks, remember?"

Dipper seemed to caught up in Wendy's words to say much of anything. But when he did find words again, he found himself tempting the fates.

"...you're not doing this to just try making me feel better, right?" Dipper asked, not believing her entirely. Wendy simply smiled, took off her hat, and nudged closer to him.

"Do I really have to prove it to you? Oh, what the heck." she exclaimed, before coming in at Dipper before he could even so much as react, giving him a light but sweet kiss.

Unlike the kiss he'd experienced as a teenager, this one was different. It was like the air had changed around the two of them. Plus, Dipper's emotions felt so different. While as a teenager he had felt a quick, hot rush, as a pre-teen, it was a prolonged, calm experience. One that left him quite dazed, once Wendy was finished and she pulled away.

There was a moment of extended silence as the dumbfounded boy slowly put his hat back on, trying to regain his bearings. Clearly, this was no dream, and he was not a teenager. Feeling a mix of new emotions that he previously was not aware of, Dipper simply smiled before hopping up into the air in triumph.

"Boy, do I love this town! I've got a girlfriend and everything!" he announced, only to be stopped short by Wendy herself.

"Woah there, partner, let's not get ahead of ourselves." she said, a more serious look now on her face.

Dipper sank back down, suddenly confused. "What did I do? I thought..."

"Look," Wendy began, trying to be as nice about this as she possibly could. "I just really need a break from boys for awhile. These last few days have been pretty insane, don't you think?"

Dipper thought about for a moment, and though it pained him to admit it, of course he couldn't help but agree. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

He ended up looking somewhat anyway, so Wendy made sure to put a comforting hand on his shoulder as she reassured him.

"Hey, don't get so down about it. We're still buds, right?" she asked, her freckled smile breaking right into the boy's heart, as it always did.

Dipper grinned. "Yeah! Of course!"

"And who knows," Wendy replied, crossing her arms and looking out at the setting sun beyond the forest ahead. "Maybe in a year or something, I'll be ready for boys again. Or maybe just one particular boy. I can't really say for sure."

Those words were all Dipper needed. His chest felt as warm as fire, and for a moment, he almost thought he would faint.

Suddenly, it seemed like all of Dipper's previous worries had just melted away. He may not have Wendy as his girlfriend now, but if he was hearing right, then he knew for a fact that he had her as a friend.

And the way she was putting it, there also seemed to hope for something more.

The only thing in Dipper's way, was time. Thinking about that, Dipper made sure not to let it get him too down. He'd had his test run as a teenager. He could wait a little bit longer to be one permanently.

"Shouldn't you be getting back to your sister? After all, I need somebody to cover me so I can finish my extended break." Wendy remarked, and Dipper was quick to stand up and respond.

"Oh, of course, Wendy! You can count on me!" he told her, before waving and running inside, his face still aglow with a very noticeable smile.

"I know I can, Dipper..." Wendy said to herself, still watching the sun as she left.

"...I know I can."

* * *

"So that's it, huh?" Mabel asked, as Dipper sat on his bed, the journal open his hands.

"That's it. We're back to being pre-teens, the projector is gone forever, and it turns out, Wendy does like me for me." Dipper replied, a big smile forming on his face as he said Wendy's name.

"But she's still not your girlfriend?" Mabel asked, as she held Waddles above her like a baby. The pig squealed as the two of them rolled back and forth on her bed.

"I guess not. But hey, it could be worse. Besides, now I can focus on the important things. Still lots of mysteries to uncover in this town. As long as you're still with me, of course. You are still with me, right, Mabel?"

Mabel laughed as she sat up and put Waddles under one arm. "Oh, come on, Dipper. You know I wouldn't dream of it any other way."

"I thought so." Dipper replied, before turning the journal, only to see a small slip of paper fall out.

Opening it up, it revealed a crudely drawn picture of a tiny girl with red-hair, and a larger dinosaur, or T-Rex, holding her hand.

The T-Rex itself had a lush red beard, and was wielding a formidable axe, but the girl in the picture seemed content in holding its hand, and not at all afraid. As Dipper looked closer, he could see two very big hearts within the T-Rex and the girl, both colored in a vibrant red.

At the bottom corner, was Wendy's name, scrawled in crayon, and a few words.

_It's what's inside that counts._

"So that's where the Lumberjack T-Rex came from..." Dipper stated, mostly to himself. He could only wonder where this picture had come from in the first place. In the end, it was probably best not to question such a thing.

Waddles squealed from his spot under Mabel's arm.

"You say something, Dipper?" she asked.

Dipper just put the drawing back into the journal, smiling to himself. "I was just wondering. Do you think there's hope for me? You know for me and Wendy...someday?"

His sister giggled, half-serious, half-not. "I'm not exactly sure. Let me ask an expert source!

She put her face right up to her pig's. "Do you think Dipper's got a chance with his one true love?"

Of course, Waddles could only squeal loudly in response. Mabel simply laughed, before putting him down and allowing him to munch on one of the socks by her bedside.

"He thinks that's it's all smooth sailing from here." Mabel told her twin brother.

He chuckled, before patting the pig on the head. "Well said, Waddles. Well said."

The memory of that wonderful kiss: that was something that wasn't leaving Dipper Pines for a long time.

And as long as he had Wendy by his side, he knew that a quaint little idea of hope, a hope that he could one day be with her, would always be with him.

He grinned to himself, as he watched Waddles happily gulp the sock all the way down.

Clearly, some things in life were very much worth waiting for.

* * *

**~ THE END ~**

* * *

**Wow! Here we are, with another finished story under my belt!**

**A few notes on the ending. I'm interested in what the reviews will say, but yes, I did end it on a more ambiguous note on purpose. I'm well aware that it is a bit strange for Dipper to just simply start dating Wendy, as the age difference is one of maturity more than it is just a case of too young or too old. But, I do believe there's hope for Dipper in the future, as long as he learns to be himself and depend only on himself. Thus, the ending of the story. Much like the show does it, I did want a sort of lesson by the end, one that Dipper would have to take some work to learn. **

**Wendy herself was probably the hardest character to get down in this; in truth, she's a bit selfish and often does what she feels is right for her, not necessarily thinking about others. Robbie was resolved off-screen, and we can assume he still isn't on great terms with Dipper. I'm sure Mabel is appreciating her smaller self again, Tambry and Thompson are dating, and Soos remains blissfully unaware.  
**

**Anyway, this would take place instead of or before Boyz Crazy I guess, if I had to put somewhere in season one in terms of storyline. I really do hope you enjoyed this story, and I apologize again for losing interest in it for a few months. I needed the ending to the first season to jumpstart me in finishing this, it seems!**

**So what's in store for the future? Perhaps more stories, but definitely more art. I do a lot of GF fan art, so you can follow me at K-El-Amrani on DeviantArt and check it all out. I plan on illustrating some scenes from this story myself soon, so keep an eye out for those! **

**Story-wise though, we'll see what the future holds. There's a long wait till the new season, plenty of time to write and create some more headcanon. ;)  
**

**Be sure to leave a review if you like the story, or even if you don't! But I do hope you enjoyed Grow Up or Go Home!  
**

**Thanks for reading!**


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